Hilarious and quirky books rule
A huge trend in books popular with 7- to12-year-olds is the partially illustrated, funny, entertaining, easy-to-read novel. They make sense as a segue from the picture book genre, with shorter text, visual cues and laugh-out loud hilarity to hook the YouTube generation.
Last year, Elise Gravel’s debut “Olga and the Smelly Thing From Nowhere” was a hit with fans of graphic novels like “Real Friends” and “Invisible Emmie.” The followup is just as “out there,” as raven-haired Olga plans to venture to space to get away from “all these annoying humans” and find the planet where alien pet Meh was born. It’s not that she doesn’t like some humans; it’s that she is particularly annoyed by those who make fun of people “with different body shapes or skin color,” those who step on bugs for fun and those who forget to pick up their dog’s poo.
Very smart and funny, the Olga books are jam-packed with comic illustrations, word bubbles, space travel facts, lists, cartoon diagrams and a host of interesting characters. It’s perfect timing for a strong, opinionated female character with science interest — love it!
Andy Griffiths’ “Treehouse Books” series started at “The 13-Story Treehouse” and has built up to “The 26-Story Treehouse” and several others, even “The 91-Story Treehouse.”
The clearly penned imaginative books star Andy and Terry, who write books and keep building more levels onto their treehouse, which has a drive-through car wash, a scribbletorium, an open-air movie theater, an allball sports stadium and even a high-security potato chip storage facility.
The New York Times best-selling series is uber-popular, complete hilarity that’s higher on the comic aspect than the words.
Kids apprehensive about junior high will love this tale that’s more wordsy than the Treehouse series. Subtitled “A LAME New World,” Obert Skye’s tongue-in-cheek take on junior high will get geeks laughing as he describes the “sox, jocks, goths, loners, freaks, pens, staffers, and yes, GEEKS” at Waddle Jr. High. The drolly illustrated book stars selfproclaimed geeky Tip and friends, coding master Xennipher, brilliant Mindy and bashful Owen, who’ve all had enough bullying and form a secret group with weird superpowers.
Kids who struggle with self-esteem, shyness and other social issues will feel empowered by Skye’s characters and their “vigilante” group known as LAME, the League of Average and Mediocre Entities. “Geeked Out” is truly cool and laugh-out-loud funny but heartwarming.