Monday, June 16, 2014

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


3 comments:

  1. Awesome series! I love Mr. Pastis' Pearls Before Swine comic and really wanted to read these when they came out. I'm happy they are as good as I hoped they be. :)

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  2. PS Do you have a widget to let people follow your blog through email or feedburner or something like that? I want to subscribe! :)

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    1. Just added one, thanks for making me learn this stuff. :)

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