Funny books

A funny and action-packed story with a sporting theme. Gloria is a hippo who along with her family form a fantastic, synchronised swimming team. They always do very well in competitions, but Gloria is tired of sharing the spotlight and begins to consider if she could try her hand at a solo sport.

This is an uplifting story about a young Sikh boy called Bobby Bains. Bobby’s love of family, and particularly his close relationship with Nana-ji, his maternal grandfather, shines through this story. Bobby’s father left when he was small, and Nana-ji lives with Bobby and his mum. But Bobby has one other enormous love, which is football. A shared obsession with Nana-ji. They share dreams about Bobby playing for Liverpool one day and scoring the winning goal.

This story brings us into the world of an old house in a park, that has had a long history of many people and personalities who have lived there. Now the old house only has visitors sometimes, except for its one resident – Tiny Ghost. Tiny Ghost lives alone in the old house and longs for someone to play with, but no one can see him.

Amelia Eggheart is a chicken with an ambition to boldly go where no chicken has gone before and to fly for longer than thirteen seconds. Can she achieve her dream? Or will she chicken out?

Aoife Dooley’s latest graphic novel is another headfirst dive into bountiful colour and expressive, playful illustration. A marvellous follow-up to the first Squid Squad story, Nothing to Sea Here, readers rejoin Ollie and Zing and their underwater crew for more deep-sea adventures.

There are moments where the difference between the worlds adults and children live in become clear. Adults are focused on moving forward, whereas children exist in a world filled with imagination all around them. This picturebook demonstrates how a simple walk for adults can transform into an imagination-filled adventure for children, and reminds us that maybe we should take the time to join them on their journey.

Eleven-year-old Alex’s whole world turns upside down when his untimely death means that he is now a vampire. You’d think that being a vampire would mean lots of cool superpowers and a whole new way of life, but not for Alex. His parents insist that he carries on with his (after)life as though everything is perfectly normal. This means school, swim trials, and secrets as he can’t reveal the truth to anyone, not even his best friends Archie and Mia.

A tangram is a puzzle made of seven geometrical pieces that you must assemble to replicate various patterns. With patience, observation and imagination, the possibilities are vast. And if, as R. Henderson does in his latest picturebook, you allow yourself to add some extra detail in pen, then there is no limit to what you can create: animals, people, objects and whole stories to showcase them.

A space portal is opening in front of our very eyes, we might get to see aliens! Except, in this very clever reversal of perspective, we are on the outside and have become someone else’s aliens. Addressing the reader directly and inviting plenty of audience participation, Zrg and Blrg zoom through all the emotions from fear to relief to excitement and even cheekiness as an unusual inter-species friendship grows over the pages.

A girl on the beach holds a red ball up for her dog. ‘Are you ready? Are you steady? Fetch!’ and she throws the red ball across the page. The dog dashes, chasing after the ball. Then more dogs from the beach follow suit. But the ball keeps bouncing from page to page, across a range of landscapes: park, museum, city, apartment block. On each page, the boundless red ball catches the attention of more dogs, who join in on this suspenseful chase.