Best Funny Books for Kids

Written and illustrated in the style of a middle schooler's journal and packed with hand-drawn cartoons, this long-running series follows a self-centered but endearing boy through the social hazards, embarrassments, and small disasters of middle and high school life. The series is one of the most popular in children's publishing and is known for its dry humor, relatable scenarios, and ability to reach reluctant readers.

Two best friends use hypnosis to turn their grumpy principal into a ridiculous superhero, and must repeatedly deal with the absurd and chaotic consequences. Each book introduces a new outlandish villain and escalates the silliness to increasingly absurd heights.

Created by the same author as the Captain Underpants series, this illustrated chapter book series follows a crime-fighting hero who is part police officer and part dog — the result of an emergency surgery that saved both their lives by combining them. The books are written and drawn in a comic-book style by a child character within the story, with silly humor, hand-drawn art, and warmhearted messages about friendship and doing good making the series widely popular with early and reluctant readers.

A group of animals with villainous reputations try desperately to prove they are actually heroes, with chaotic and hilarious results every time. Each book adds new members, new schemes, and increasingly absurd twists to their crime-fighting misadventures.

This beloved comic middle-grade series is set in a school that was supposed to be built as a single-story building with thirty classrooms side by side — but was accidentally built thirty stories tall with one classroom on each floor — and follows the deeply peculiar students and teachers of the thirtieth floor through a series of absurdist and surreal episodes. The series is a classic of nonsense comedy for children, celebrated for its inventive humor, logical illogic, and affectionate weirdness.

Two rival pranksters in a small town call a truce and join forces, channeling their combined creativity into increasingly elaborate and ambitious schemes. Each book escalates the partnership and the scale of the pranks they devise together.

A boy who strongly dislikes school discovers that every adult in his building has a bizarre personality and unconventional teaching style, making each day completely unpredictable. Each book introduces a new staff member with a new strange specialty.

Two friends live in an ever-expanding treehouse filled with outrageous and imaginative floors, and each book follows a new chaotic adventure set across the latest additions. The treehouse grows with every installment, adding more absurd rooms and wilder scenarios.

An illustrated diary-style comedy series following an overconfident middle school student whose grand ambitions reliably collide with reality in entertaining ways. The books blend comic strip panels with chapter book narrative, making them a popular choice for reluctant readers and anyone who enjoys humor rooted in recognizable school-life situations.

A deadpan illustrated comedy series about a self-appointed boy detective who is magnificently wrong about almost everything but completely convinced of his own genius. Told through the detective's hilariously unreliable narration and accompanied by simple drawings, the series rewards readers who enjoy absurdist humor and an oblivious narrator.