Author Andy Griffiths and illustrator Terry Denton (who apparently live and work in a 13-story treehouse) need to come up with a new book for their demanding publisher Mr. Big Nose. After procrastinating for a year, the two find that they have only one day to write and illustrate their manuscript. This wouldn’t be much of a problem except that Andy and Terry are having difficultly concentrating on coming up with a silly story with all the distractions around them. And who can blame them? After all, there are neighbor’s cats to paint yellow and throw out the window, highly unpredictable mail-order sea monkeys to grow, and burp bubbles to fly around in.

Will Andy and Terry manage to pull themselves together in time, or will their crazy lives keep them from writing the next great crazy story?

There are so many serious, thought-provoking, emotion-tweaking middle grade level books out on the market…

This is not one of them.

And for that, I am glad. Kids (and adults) need to have the silly, rollicking stories as a breath of fresh air from the often-somber realistic fiction out there. Kudos to Griffiths and Denton for providing us with their brand of off-the-wall humor.

So…I listened to this book on audio. I thought it was pretty entertaining with the highly energetic voice of Stig Wemyss and plenty of wacky sound effects to boot. However, I would recommend having the actual book on hand to follow along as you tend to miss some of the silly humor without the illustrations.