Mistakes Were Made is the first in a six-book series about Timmy Failure by cartoonist Stephan Pastis. Larrabee and I like books that make us laugh and this one definitely did.

Timmy is a middle schooler and the CEO of his own detective agency, Total Failure, Inc. His business partner is a polar bear who loves chicken nuggets. And his nemesis is rival detective Corrina Corrina, also known as something that rhymes with Weevil Bun.

The first few lines of the prologue will give you a sense of the witty tone of the book: “It’s harder to drive a polar bear into someone’s living room than you’d think. You need a living-room window that’s big enough to fit a car. You need a car that’s big enough to fit a polar bear. And you need a polar bear that’s big enough to not point out your errors.”

Larrabee and I took turns reading this book aloud to each other, sitting side by side on the couch so that we could both see the illustrations. I’m glad we read it together for several reasons:

1. Timmy is an imaginative and unreliable narrator, and Larrabee’s not used to having to question a narrator’s version of events. For example, Timmy says that he eats alone at lunch recess so that he can do global strategic planning for his detective agency without the other kids committing an act of industrial sabotage.
2. The book has some big words–mendacity, subterfuge, surveillance, hypocritical, citadel. For a kid who doesn’t always excel in school, Timmy has an extensive vocabulary and knows how to use it.
3. Timmy doesn’t always make good choices. Although Larrabee and I read mostly for fun, if we find the occasional life lesson, so much the better.