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Alex Milway

This Book is Funny!

Funny books for children

Holiday Ha Ha Ha! Funny Story Collection

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Holiday Ha Ha Ha! cover.indd

A bunch of funny stories for the summer? YES PLEASE!

Summer is almost here, and what could be better than eight funny stories bundled together in this great book? Containing tales by top, prize-winning authors David Solomons, Joanna Nadin, Candy Harper, Jonathan Meres, Steven Butler, Jeremy Strong, Steve Cole and William Butler, it’s a terrific holiday read.

This Book is Funny! is lucky enough to be the first stop on the Holiday Ha Ha Ha! blog tour, and to get things going, we have a great holiday memory by Steven Butler (@sbutlerbooks on Twitter).

So you know, Steven is the author of the bestselling The Diary Of Dennis The Menace and The Wrong Pong fiction series. His first novel, The Wrong Pong, was shortlisted for the prestigious Roald Dahl Funny Prize in 2009. Steven is also a successful performer and voice artist.

Take it away Steven!

…

When I was a little boy, my family had terrifically bad luck with summer holidays.

We kept having fires!! I know what you’re thinking. One fire is bad enough. It’s terrifying and dangerous and hot. Well… in the space of three holidays, we had three fires. See what I mean? TERRIFICALLY BAD LUCK!

Butler Family Fire No. 1: This one happened when I was about 6, and my family went camping in France. We were staying at a campground in the middle of a huge pine forest on the side of a mountain, and it was BEAUTIFUL. But… it quickly lost its beauty when there was a massive forest-fire. Mum and Dad threw us into the car, and we had to abandon our tents, driving as far away as we could get. We ended up staying in a hotel, miles away from our slowly cooking clothes and belongings.

BUMMER!

Butler Family Fire No.2: The next year mum and Dad decided we were going to give camping in France another go. This time however, we stayed well away from pine forests on mountains, and booked into a sprawling horse ranch.

On the third day of our trip, my brother, my sister and myself were playing outside our tent, when we noticed an enormous cloud of black smoke rising into the air not very far away. Dad went off to investigate, but quickly came sprinting back screaming “GET IN THE CAR!”

[Read more…]

Snow-Man Windy Pops!

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windyIf you’ve ever found yourself reading a dull early reader book – most likely from a reading scheme – you and your kids will be jumping for joy at this new series. Snow-man Windy Pops! by the hilarious Tommy Donbavand and Steve Beckett is an incredibly irreverent Beano-esque blast of brilliance.

Part of a set (in much the same style as the Oxford Reading Tree, with vocabulary lists, and so on), this book is filled with great comic illustrations and fart gags galore. If your kids like windy-pops jokes, this book will have them laughing til they’re blue in the face. Yes, it’s very silly, but I know from experience that’s what a lot of children love. My daughter think it’s brilliant.

So if your young son or daughter is finding their reading books at school boring, this will make them very happy – and teach them new words at the same time. Great stuff!

If you liked this, check out all the other super titles in the series.

Published by Badger Learning. RRP £5.99.

 

Supermarket Gremlins

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supermarket gremlinsThis is a wonderful rhyming picture book by the dream team of Adam & Charlotte Guillain and illustrated by Chris Chatterton. It will make you laugh out loud as you try to spot the little Gremlins hiding in and amongst the shelves, getting up to no good.

Supermarket Gremlins is a bold, bright and funny book for all ages and would be a perfect read before a visit to the shops. But be warned, the supermarket will never be seen in the same light again! Read our review here.

Hamish and the World Stoppers

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hamishIt’s quite easy to be wary when celebrities and ‘adult’ fiction authors getting involved in the world of children’s books. But it’s pretty clear that Danny Wallace’s heart was fully into this project. The proof is in the writing and the wonderfully energetic story, and when I asked him why he wrote a children’s book it was for the best of reasons – he wanted to write something for his own children.

So what would you do if the world stopped about you, and you could get up to all sorts of mischief? And what would you do if you then found the reason time was freezing was because of the World Stoppers and an army of horrible monsters that wanted to take over the world?

Hamish and the World Stoppers, and its sequel Hamish and the Never People are epic adventures with a team of children who end up having to save the world. They’re funny, and silly, and best of all they’re exciting – and rammed with magnificent illustrations by Jamie Littler. I’d say this was a dream team, and the two books have so much going for them. Children will love them.

If you’re lucky enough to live near to one of Danny and Jamie’s festival events, they’re an awesome team on stage – you have to go!

If you like these, try The Unlikely Adventures of Mabel Jones by Will Mabbitt, illustrated by Ross Collins.

Published by Simon and Schuster. RRP £6.99.

 

The Unlikely Adventures of Mabel Jones

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Mabel JonesThe Unlikely Adventures of Mabel Jones by Will Mabbitt is a super exciting, occasionally digusting (BOGEY EATING! EURGH!), heavily illustrated tale of derring-do on the high seas. And it’s quite unlike any other pirate book out there.

Starting with Mabel’s kidnap by a gnarled old pirate Loris (I told you it was unusual, or maybe ‘unlikely’) the story concerns the adventures of a pirate ship manned by crazy animals. The plot goes places you’d never expect – including a spot of time-travel – and that’s what makes it so appealing.

A big mention must go to Ross Collins, who’s done a terrific job of bringing all the animal shipmates of The Feroshus Maggot to life. And the design is equally great, with words blown up big and bouncing around the page like the characters themselves.

I love this type of book, for this age of reader. It’s the sort of book that can stand up and compete against computer games and cartoons, and for that reason alone we should be celebrating it. And the great news is that the sequel, Mabel Jones and the Forbidden City is now available too!

If you like this, try Hamish and the Neverpeople, by Danny Wallace and Jamie Littler.

Published by Puffin. RRP £6.99

 

Betty Goes Bananas in her Pyjamas

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9780192738189This second picture book about Betty by Steve Antony is a real joy.

The tale of one toucan’s attempts to get a wilful young gorilla to bed, Betty Goes Bananas in her Pyjamas takes the premise of Betty Goes Bananas (a huge hit in our house) and adds the extra punch of a troublesome bed-time routine. Any parent who has experienced their son or daughter wanting to do everything other than sleep will appreciate the efforts of Mr Toucan, the unflappable bird who tries his very best to convince Betty it really is time to sleep.

The artwork is superb – Betty’s expressions are so spot on. Yes, this is a gorilla, but Betty perfectly represents every toddler that’s ever lived. If you have a daughter or son like Betty, you’ll certainly relate to what you’re seeing on the page.

So this is definitely a book that both the parents and their children will love. And any book about the difficulty of getting a child to sleep, which is likely to be read at bedtime, is very gratefully received. Come on kids, see your parents’ pain and give them a break!

Also, where can I get me some banana pyjamas? They are awesome.

If you like this try Steve Antony’s other books Please Mr Panda, or Betty Goes Bananas!

Published by Oxford University Press. RRP £6.99

 

 

Danger is Everywhere

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Danger is Everywhere CoverThis is a very silly book, which is why it’s so brilliant. A kind of instructional, self-help guide to keep you safe at all times, Danger is Everywhere by David O’Doherty and Chris Judge, will teach you to be wary of EVERYTHING, even things that are entirely made up (i’m now always on the look-out for supermarket leopards hiding under over-ripe bananas!) And quite right too.

Fully illustrated by the super-talented Chris Judge (do you own the Lonely Beast? You really should), this book gives you all of Docter Noel Zone’s bonkers wisdom and then some.
For ages 8+, though I think many adults would enjoy it equally.
If you like this, then there’s also a sequel Danger is Still Everywhere, and you’d definitely like the Mr Gum books by Andy Stanton, or even The Pirates, in an Adventure with Scientists, by Gideon Defoe.
Published by Puffin. RRP £7.99

Louie Lets Loose

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louie“Greetings, humans. I am Louie the Unicorn and this is my tale.” And so begins the terrifically funny and wonderfully absurd Louie Lets Loose by Rachel Hamilton.

It’s a nicely simple premise, perfectly suited for early readers just getting used to reading novels: Young Louie the Unicorn decides to leave Story Land for the Bright Lights of New York in search of SUPERSTARDOM.

Our intrepid, selfie-snapping unicorn enrols in the New York School for Performing Arts to realise his dreams, and in doing so meets all sorts of cool mythical creatures living it large in the city. And of course, this isn’t quite the New York as we know it, though there are hot dogs and donuts, and probably gallons of coffee.

We need more bright and cheerful books like this, for this age group. Honestly, after climbing the slow mountain of the early years reading schemes, to any new reader this book will make it seem like the clouds have parted and the sun is shining down from above.

And that’s not even mentioning the ace illustrations by Oscar Armelles. They’re a quirky mix of line and photo montage, which suits the story perfectly.

If you like this, try the Claude books by Alex T Smith.

Published by Oxford University Press. RRP £5.99

 

 

 

The Last Kids on Earth

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last kids on earthFor children not quite old enough for the gore and horror of The Walking Dead but still wanting their zombie apocalypses, The Last Kids on Earth by Max Brallier is a riot of fun.

It’s vividly and brilliantly illustrated by Douglas Holgate, and packed with jokes, wisecracking characters, and awesome monsters. Written in first person from the perspective of a boy who survived the outbreak of some crazy zombie disease, the story has the feel of a comic in novel form. The main character’s cool, has a great bunch of friends and even gets his own pet monster.
I loved it for many reasons. It’s got flashy design and has an exceedingly eye-catching cover. It’s fairly unusual, in that it’s a novel at the top end of primary school/early teen (with quite graphic – if comic – violence,) yet still fully illustrated. For the artwork alone it should be celebrated. And then, of course, it’s funny.
So, if you know a kid who’s not quite out of primary school, who’s hard to pull away from videogames, this is the perfect read. If you like this then try Hamish and the Worldstoppers, or if you’re a little older, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Published by Egmont, RRP £6.99.

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