Timmy Failure

 

                

 

Available Now

Stephan Pastis

Candlewick Press

Ages 8-12

 

Timmy is the founder, president and CEO of the detective agency Failure Inc.  He is also in elementary school.  His business partner is a polar bear named Total, who's artic home was melting so he wondered for food and, 3,101 miles later found Timmy's cat food dish.  Sadly, kitty is now in kitty heaven and the agency is now called Total Failure Inc.  These are some of the funniest mystery books for middle graders I have read in a long time.  Great for reluctant readers as Timmy provides self illustrations throughout the books, but not enough to make the books graphic novels. 

 

MEET TOTAL

 

In the first book the main mystery is that Timmy's mother's Segway is stolen, of course there are smaller cases to be solved along the way, but Timmy blames it on his arch enemy Corrina Corrina and spends the book trying to prove this and get the Segway back before his mom figures out it has been stolen.  But you will never figure out the real answer, and that is the best part about these books.

In the second book, it is a school detective contest that has Timmy seeing dollar signs, but is Corrina Corrina there to foil him again, or will his friends and Great Aunt Colander, with her Boom Boom Shoewheels, come to his rescue? You will find Timmy's ever studying friend, Rollo Tookus, with his steady head, along with tangerine smelling Molly Moskins and her perpetual Crush on Timmy, as the comic relief, balance out the book very well. 

This is a great series and just plain great reads!

4 1/2 STARS