Inspector Flytrap by Tom Angleberger and Cece Bell

Inspector Flytrap is, you guessed it, a Venus flytrap.  He lives in a pot and has a goat assistant, Nina, who pushes him around on a skateboard.  He is always looking for "Big Deal" cases to solve, and he finds them. During the book Flytrap is able to solve several short mysteries, each taking one chapter of the book.  The only problem is that in solving the cases, Inspector Flytrap and Nina seem to make more enemies than satisfied customers. 

I was pretty excited to hear that Tom Angleberger and his wife, Cece Bell, had collaborated on an intermediate reader.  As I started to read it, my first impression was that this was just too silly for me. Come on, a talking venus flytrap and a goat that eats everything?   But I stuck with it, and was delighted how Angleberger pulled elements of each of the mysteries together into a fairly clever finale.  I think 2nd graders are going to love this.  The second in the series was just released.  (98 p.)

(Note to librarians.  When I was ordering it I couldn't tell if it was going to be a comic book or an illustrated book.  It is an illustrated book. Just fyi)