'The Book You're Not Supposed to Have (Timmy Failure #5)' by Stephan Pastis is my first read in this series. It is very odd and very funny.

Timmy Failure has been banished from being a detective until the end of the school year. He is also upset because his mother is marrying the doorman, and they expect Timmy to be in the wedding. Add in his strange cousins Merry and Larry, a missing best friend, and a school strike that threatens to extend school to all year.

Timmy is a weird little kid, and really funny in all of that weirdness. He has a polar bear for an assistant, and his perception and detective skills are a bit lacking. Still it was funny to see him setting up his detective office in a garden shed at a big box hardware store and ripping up a Mickey Molar stuffed animal from his orthodontist.

Stephan Pastis is the man behind the Pearls Before Swine comic strip that I love, and his illustrations are throughout the book. It's a fun read for younger readers. I had a lot of fun gettng to know Timmy Failure.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Candlewick Press and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.

Just the Right Amount of Timmy

I like these books, although I sometimes wonder how much of the screwball, dry and ironic humor kids actually get. But I'm always and constantly surprised by kids' insight into exaggeration and deadpan humor, so it's probably a big mistake to underestimate their capacity to appreciate irony.

That said, sometimes you can have too much Timmy, and he can start to feel like a single, extended one-note joke. This book avoids that problem by surrounding Timmy with a fine, extended cast of foils, assistants, and minor characters who add a great deal of variety to the book's essential Timmy-ness.

Of course, we have long suffering Mother. And soon to be step-dad Doorman Dave. And, Rollo and Molly are in fine form. While Mother and Dave get to play straight man roles, Molly and Rollo bring out the best and most antic side of Timmy. But here we also get two visiting cousins, who are constant targets of Timmy's suspicions, and a piano teacher, an orthodontist, and a substitute teacher, each of whom offers something new for Timmy to get worked up about. Throw in a dozen more incidental characters, and Timmy is totally on a roll.

It also helps that there are multiple story lines. Timmy has to run his agency on the sly. There's a teachers' strike. The wedding is coming up. Rollo has been kidnapped. The cousins are up to something. And more.

The upshot is that among all of the other characters, and betwixt and between all of the plot threads, Timmy gets to be Timmy without at all wearing thin. For me, this may end up one of my favorite Timmy Failures.

(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)