Funny Books with Plenty of Pictures

"Humor is the oxygen of children's literature. There's a lot of competition for children's time, but even kids who hate to read want to read a funny book."

~Sid Fleischman 

The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex: Grades 3-5

 

 Summary: After aliens known as the Boov invade earth, an 11 year old girl named Gratuity reluctantly partners with a renegade Boov (J.Lo) in order to rescue Gratuity’s mother. But when other alien invaders arrive, J.Lo and Gratuity have to work together to save the world.

 

I have read this book twice, which is one of the highest endorsements I can give. My younger sisters and their friends also liked the book when I recommended it to them. The True Meaning of Smekday is funny, charming, and there are drawings that create context for the reader (reading a description about aliens isn’t the same as seeing a picture, such as the picture of Gratuity and J.Lo on the right).

 

There are also subtle issues of diversity in the book, as Gratuity and J.Lo must overcome their differences and work together to rescue both Gratuity’s mom and the world. Gratuity is also a biracial character, which creates a wider representation of diversity than usual in a children’s book.

 

The True Meaning of Smekday is also the inspiration for the 2015 movie Home, though the movie’s plot is a little different from the book’s plot.

 
 

The Adventures of Captain Underpants by Dave Pilkey: Grades 2-5

 

Summary: The Adventures of Captain Underpants follows the adventures of best friends Harold Hutchins and George Beard after they hypnotize their mean principal (Mr. Krupp) into believing he’s a superhero called Captain Underpants. When the hypnotized Principal Krupp runs off to catch villains, George and Harold must dehypnotize their principal and safely return him to school before they find themselves in trouble.

 

I love recommending this series because the Captain Underpants books are humorous, easy to read, and have pictures on every page. I’ve found that sometimes it’s best to give reluctant readers books with short text and pictures, as it makes the books seem less daunting. My older brother isn’t a reader, but he read every single one of these books when we were kids (probably because the books have whoopee cushion jokes). The first book in the Captain Underpants set was also turned into a movie this year.

 

On a side note, I read that this book is frequently challenged or banned. Dave Pilkey wrote a blog response for Huffington Post about the banning of his book, and the title is aptly named “My Book Makes Kids Laugh, and It was Banned Anyways.” One of the main points Pilkey makes is that kids and adults are amused by different things, which I think is the case with these books (to read more about Pilkey's response, click here). I’m not sure if I’d find the Captain Underpants series funny now, but I thought the books were hilarious when I was 8.

 

   

My other recommendations are:

 

Babymouse series by Jennifer and Matthew Holm (grades 4-6)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney (grades 5-8)

 

 

Blog Introduction

 

"I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn't be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage."
                                                                                                                 ~Roald Dahl

 

I chose to create this blog for my college non-fiction writing course because I spent my childhood with a book in my hands, but my youngest sisters would rather watch Netflix. Because of this, I spent the last few summers dragging them to our local library and piling books into their arms in a desperate attempt of making them read. In the process, I rediscovered favorite books from my childhood and discovered new books to add to my growing list of recommendations.

The result of our library trips? My younger sisters started reading, as I finally realized that the universal rule for encouraging kids to read for fun is to cater to their interests. At first, I gave them books I liked, but they didn't enjoy them. So after I gave them a few failed books, I started organizing books into categories for them. My youngest sister used to believe that along with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, unicorns and dragons were real, so I gave her books from the fantasy genre. My other sister loves cats, so I picked out books with mice as the central characters.

Therefore, my purpose for this blog is to share the children's book recommendations that I created during my trial and error period of convincing my siblings to read. My hope is that these recommendations will be useful for either someone else trying to teach a love of reading or someone looking for another good book to read.