A huge trend in books popular with 7- to-12-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.
Olga: We’re Out of Here
By Elise Gravel; HarperCollins; 187 pages; $12.99
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 follow-up — Olga: We’re Out of Here — 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!
The 78-Storey Treehouse
By Andy Griffiths; illustrated by Terry Denton; Feiwel & Friends; 375 pages; $13.99
Andy Griffiths’ “Treehouse Books” series started at The 13-Storey Treehouse and has built up to The 26-Storey Treehouse and several others, even The 91-Storey Treehouse.
Now comes The 78-Storey Treehouse, a clearly penned imaginative book that stars 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 all-ball 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.
Geeked Out
By Obert Skye; Henry Holt and Co.; 212 pages; $13.99
Kids apprehensive about junior high will love Geeked Out, a 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 Junior High School.
The drolly illustrated book stars self-proclaimed 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.
My FANGtastically Evil Vampire Pet
By Mo O’Hara; illustrated by Marek Jagucki; Feiwel & Friends; 200 pages; $12.99
The author of the popular and hysterical My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish series of comic-filled books, Mo O’Hara, seems to have a screw loose, to the benefit of funny novel-reading kids everywhere.
In her latest, My FANGtastically Evil Vampire Pet, no goldfish are invited when Mark’s mom agrees to send him to Eco-Scientist camp with his best friend, Sanj, and his “evil vampire kitten, Fang.” The boys name the camp Evil Scientist Summer Camp, or “Camp Mwhaaa-haa-ha-a-watha,” and it’s every bit as campy and action-packed as it sounds.
Smart, larger than life and hilarious, O’Hara’s camp and cat tale is a hoot.
Kidbits
Among other highly entertaining half-comic, half-novel new books:
» The adventurous Super Life of Ben Braver by Marcus Emerson (Roaring Brook Press), in which brave Ben is sent off to a secret school for young superheroes.
» Julius Zebra: Battle With the Britons! by Gary Northfield (Candlewick Press) is truly wackily out there, as handsome Julius Zebra has a last battle before vacation in Britannia.
» Sticker Girl Rules the School by Janet Tashjian (Henry Holt & Co.) includes real stickers and a talking cupcake sticker that helps a real girl run for class president.
» The Scribble Squad in the Weird Wild West by Donald “Scribe” Ross (Andrews McMeel Publishing) is an energetic tale of live scribbles who fall into their own painting to face a bevy of Western rivals like piranha-pistol-packing Wildhares and buzzing battlebees of their own creation.
» Microsaurs: That’s My Tiny-Saurus Rex by Dustin Hansen (Feiwel & Friends) has a video game feel and a high-energy story of a boy and girl who are Microsaur sitters and need to work fast to fix a professor’s lab.
— Lee Littlewood writes the Kids’ Home Library column for Creators. The San Diego wife and mom’s pure love of children’s literature helps her stay interested in words and pictures meant for tots to teens. Click here to contact her, or click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are her own.