Humorous Fiction Family

Kathryn Erskine won the National Book Award for her mesmerizing novel Mockingbird. In The Absolute Value of Mike, a young man grows up during an unlikely adventure. Despite his best efforts, Mike has a hard time communicating with his calculus-loving father - and having a math learning disability certainly doesn’t help. But when Mike is sent to Pennsylvania to work on an engineering project, the young man learns valuable lessons from the colorful characters he meets.

From the Waterstones Book Prize shortlisted author of A Boy Called Hope and The Boy Who Sailed the Ocean in an Armchair. Mabel has a suitcase full of worries - it turned up just after her dad disappeared and before her mum started dating Gavin. She worries about big things and little things and shoves them into her suitcase until it’s so full it might explode....

Will's beloved granny made cakes and knitted itchy jumpers - that's what he thought. But when she passes away and dodgy Jasper Fitchet moves in to their village, dark magic begins to unravel in Knitford. Can Peter and his gran's old craft group tie Fitchet in knots? With the help of her old motorbike and a flock of magical sheep, they might just do it...so long as they don't drop a stitch.

Achim is 11 years old when he moves from the orphanage to the house by the sea. Here everything is strange and new. But one day he discovers an unusual door that leads to a circular room with walls made of rough stone. The light coming through the window is hazy, as if the room is under water. It is a magic room - which he calls “The Adopted Room” - belonging to another world. And on a bed in the room sits a boy who is waiting to take Achim with him into the realm of the powerful Nameless One.

All the troubles in sixth-grader Claudia Harper’s life seem to start with her fourth-grade friend Dunford Wylie Booth V.

Welcome to the Rotten School, a new series set in a boarding school that's rotten to the core. The school motto is Growth, Learning, Pizza. Meet charming conniver Bernie Bridges, his arch-rival Sherman Oaks, housemother Mrs. Heinie, Coach Bunz, Headmaster I. Will Upchuck, and the rest of the students and faculty in two stories that prove that while good is good and bad is better, rotten is the best of all!

Frankie Laundau-Banks is no longer the kind of girl to take "no" for an answer. Especially when "no" means she's excluded from her boyfriend's all-male secret society. Not when her ex boyfriend shows up in the strangest of places. Not when she knows she's smarter than any of them.

This is the art box of my DREAMS. Earning extra pocket money to buy it will be TRICKY. I’ll need to HELP OUT a LOT. Wash Delia’s clothes? Why not. Clean Dad’s shed? Yes, please! Sweep up the leaves? No problem! But when a HUGE STORM hits Oakfield Town and wrecks the library roof, a big campaign begins to FIX IT FAST. Can our school reach the target before the kids from Great Manor? Hmmm...eventually.

For an athlete like Matt Daniels, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It's also the most dangerous. That's because somebody is about to pull a mean prank. The recipe is simple: Just add Monster Blood. As if Matt's problems weren't big and slimy enough, a surprise invitation will lead to even more trouble. How long can Matt survive inside a terrifying theme park? Not very long if his friends keep disappearing!

In this infectious rhyming book, Baby Llama turns bedtime into an all-out llama drama! Tucked into bed by his mama, Baby Llama immediately starts worrying when she goes downstairs, and his soft whimpers turn to hollers when she doesn't come right back. But just in time, Mama returns to set things right. Children will relate to Baby Llama's need for comfort, as much as parents will appreciate Mama Llama's reassuring message.

“Alex Peter Gregory, you are a moron!” Laurie slammed her palms down on my desk and stomped her foot. I get a lot of that. One car crash. One measly little car crash. And suddenly, I’m some kind of convicted felon. My parents are getting divorced, my dad is shacking up with my third-grade teacher. I might be in love with a girl who could kill me with one finger, and now I’m sentenced to baby-sit some insane old guy. What else could possibly go wrong? This is the story of Alex Gregory, his guitar, his best gal pal Laurie, and the friendship of a lifetime that he never would have expected.

Anastasia is a completely average almost-eleven-year-old. That is, UNTIL her parents die in a tragic vacuum-cleaner accident. UNTIL she's rescued by two long-lost great-aunties. And UNTIL she's taken to their delightful and, er, "authentic" Victorian home, St. Agony's Asylum for the Criminally Insane. But something strange is going on at the asylum. Anastasia soon begins to suspect that her aunties are not who they say they are. So when she meets Ollie and Quentin, two mysterious brothers, the three join together to plot their great escape!

Billy and Sheena always expect adventure when they join their uncle, Dr. Deep, aboard his hi-tech boat. What they don't expect is a treasure hunt leading to a 200-year-old sea captain...who refuses to stay dead!

The Christmas-crazy Carrolls are back—and this time, they have an ice-skating baby penguin! There’s a new family in town determined to steal the Carrolls’ tinselly crown. Can Holly and her family win the Christmas Chronicle’s competition for the Most Festive Family? Or will they discover that there is more to life than perfect Christmas decorations, a personal toboggan run, and more pressies than you can shake a candy cane at?

Author Coleen Murtagh Paratore gives fairytale love stories a modern gloss through the eyes of 12-year-old cherry-cordial eater and classic-literature reader Willafred Haversham. What Willa wishes for most in the world is a father, but so far no luck. When she and her wedding planner mother, Stella, move back home to Cape Cod, Willa’s luck begins to change. With help from her best friend Tina and candy-making Nana, Willa decides wishing for a father isn’t enough - it’s time to take action.

In this sequel to Paratore's popular The Wedding Planner's Daughter, Bramble's only library is rumored to be closing its doors forever. Willa Havisham just can't let that happen, so she's got to raise money - fast. Plus, she simply has to find a date for the Midwinter Night's Ball. Thankfully, her best friend, Tina, has devised a love compatibility test that might be able to take care of both problems. And before long, Cupid's arrow seems to be hitting the mark all over Bramble.

Eleven year-old Peter Lee has one goal in life: to become a paleontologist. Okay, maybe two: to get his genius kid sister, L.B., to leave him alone. But his summer falls apart when his real-life dinosaur expedition turns out to be a bust, and he watches his dreams go up in a cloud of asthma-inducing dust.

Pink, pink, pink. More than anything, Pinkalicious loves pink, especially pink cupcakes. Her parents warn her not to eat too many of them, but when Pinkalicious does...she turns pink! What to do?

After their adventures in China and Germany, the Kidd family is ready for some rest and relaxation. But when you're an ace treasure hunting team, there's always another adventure waiting around the corner! This time the Kidds head to Russia, where a set of priceless paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt has gone missing. Hot on the trail of the daring thieves, the Kidds race through the sinister streets of St. Petersburg and the wild Arctic tundra to track down the stolen treasure.

Bick, Beck, Storm, and Tommy are stuck in Washington, DC without any priceless antiques to hunt - BORING! But everything changes when the Kidds uncover a dastardly conspiracy: a fake Bill of Rights! Now they're crisscrossing the country in a race to prove the document is a forgery. But the key to exposing the conspiracy may have been under their noses the whole time. And if they don't find it soon, the USA as we know it could be gone forever....