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A young girl (12) named Tiffany Aching sees a monster come out of the river, and decides to take care of it. She is helped by some new friends .. six inch men who are blue and kin to Celtic warriors. They talk with wonderful accents, and will fight anything that moves. Their heads are weapons, and one headbutt can down a horse. They are quite hilarious. Tiffany's younger brother (who is sticky and always wants more sweets) is stolen, and she must go to save him. To do so, she must go to another land, which is touching theirs (and is evil). It is a land of nightmare, where there are webs in which one can be caught that make you dream, and if you eat any food, you stay in the dream forever. And nightmare dogs that are also horrible. There is a queen who is in charge of all the dreams, causing people to join in her dream, and not allowing them to leave.

The little blue men are my favorite part of this story. They are hilarious. “We are a famously stealin' folk. Aren't we, lad? Whut's it we're famous for?” [their leader] “Stealin'!” shouted the blue men. “And what else, lads?” “Fightin'!” “And what else, lads?” “Drinkin'!” “And what else?” There was a certain amount of thought about this, but they all reached the same conclusion. “Drinkin' and fightin'!” “And there was summat else,” muttered the twiddler. “Ach, yes. Tell the hag, lads!” “Stealin' and drinkin' and fightin'!” shouted the blue men cheerfully. [pages 99-100]

Title:	The Wee Free Men
Author:	Terry Pratchett
Date published:	2003
Genre:	Fantasy, Humor
Series:	Discworld
Number of pages:	375
Notes:	recommended by jewell and levi

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G was very excited to read about this book in his University of Maryland alumni magazine because Kinney was a cartoonist for the campus newspaper when G was there, so we picked up a copy right away. It's a fairly entertaining book-- the story of a kid in middle school, trying to be cool and fit in. The book is printed as if hand printed by the narrator, Greg Heffley, and interspersed with little cartoony drawings to illustrate his point. Some of these are particularly amusing, for instance the one that illustrates his discover that it's preferable to anger his dad when he's holding a newspaper instead of a brick, since he tends to throw whatever he is holding. The book is supposed to be a novel in cartoons, but it didn't seem like there was much of a big story arc to me; it's just the story of a school year with the various events and the messes that Greg gets himself into-- trying to create a haunted house to make money, coming up with ideas for a comic strip for the school paper, breaking up with his best friend and eventually re-establishing the friendship, the travails of the disgusting "cheese touch" on the playground that will give you cooties if you touch it, and other silly middle-school stuff like that.

The artwork is fun and enjoyable (not great art, but something you could believe a middle school kid might be able to draw), and the tone of the writing is often humorous. I wasn't as engaged, I guess because there was no real story but just a lot of separate events, but it did make me laugh at several points.

Title:	Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Author:	Jeff Kinney
Date published:	2007
Genre:	Young Adult
Number of pages:	224

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Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett's humorous take on the apocalypse-- the antichrist has been misplaced (accidentally switched and given to the wrong family at birth). The two central characters are an angel and a demon, the field agents of heaven and hell who have more in common with each other than their respective home bases. In fact, they go way back-- all the way back to the graden of Eden. Crowley (then called Crawly) was the serpentine tempter, and Aziraphale was the Angel who was supposed to stand guard Eden to keep Adam and Even from coming back (in fact, he thought they looked cold so he gave them his flaming sword to keep warm). Aziraphale and Crawley both really like Earth and humans and they don't want everything destroyed in the coming Armageddon.

This is a really funny book-- I think I was laughing within the first few pages. There are even footnotes which are quite hilarious (one footnote explains the British money system, and then states that they never went to a metric system because it would be too complicated). Even the "about the author" paragraphs made me laugh. I discovered, however, that one of the trade-offs with a humorous novel like this is that it's harder to get invested in the characters-- I didn't really care that much about the apocalypse because I knew the world wouldn't be destroyed (since that wouldn't be funny).

Title:	Good Omens
Author:	Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett
Date published:	1990
Genre:	Science Fiction, Humor
Number of pages:	367

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A beautiful farce! This book is about Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, who together make it through many mishaps. More true to say that Wooster makes it into the mishaps and Jeeves gets him out again. There are all sorts of humors -- plays on words, plots which interweave in wonderful ways, sarcasm, proper english attitudes taken a bit too far. Wodehouse is funny. Sometimes laugh outloud funny, which isn't all that common in books anymore.

Wooster is commissioned by his Aunt Dahlia to steal a cow-creamer for his uncle. Sir Bassett is always in competition with said uncle and got this cow-creamer, which the aunt needs so the uncle will write a big check for her. Bassett and Wooster already have a bad history, and it only gets worse as we go throughout the story. Bassett's daughter is marrying a friend of Woosters, and his niece is marrying another college friend. So -- Wooster (and Jeeves, of course!) get to make sure both marriages happen, the cow-creamer gets into the right hands, and nobody is sent to jail by the judge (Sir Bassett). Makes for some wonderful dialog and twists and turns along the way to a happy ending.

Title:	The Code of the Woosters
Author:	P. G. Wodehouse
Date published:	1938
Genre:	British Humor
Series:	Jeeves
Number of pages:	222

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A delightful collection of full-color, full-size Sunday comics from the hilarious and heart-warming comic strip, "Rose is Rose." Brady depicts the adventures of a loving family-- Rose, Jimbo, their son Pasquale, and their cat Peekaboo, too. This is a world where imagination comes to life-- at any moment, Rose may turn into her alter ego, or Rose and Jimbo may revert to their child selves; at night, Pasquale explores the universe in his dream ship, and he is always protected by his guardian angel, who sometimes appears in child guise, and sometimes in full warrior mode.

The artwork is wonderful, and the colors are vibrant. Some of my favorite strips in this collection are the ones that begin in black and white and show color returning to the world-- the contrast makes the vitality and warmth of the colors even more clear. I laughed out loud several times reading through these. It is also delightful to see Brady's depiction of a healthy, happy family who love one another and provide ample space for exploration and imagination.

Title:	Rose is Rose in Loving Color : A Collection of Sunday Rose is Rose Comics
Author:	Pat Brady
Date published:	1999
Genre:	Humor
Series:	Rose is Rose
Number of pages:	128

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The ever-delightful, irrepressible Calvin & Hobbes. G. & I found this at a great price-- which I assume was because of the new hardcover complete Calvin & Hobbes that was recently made available. It's a treasure worth owning and reading and re-reading, because even after multiple readings I still find myself chuckling and even laughing out loud.

This collection includes Calvin's first finding Hobbes, his first meeting of Susie Derkins, the neighbor girl he loves to torment, along with several Spaceman Spiff fantasies and plenty of Calvin's crazy schemes, and some wacky and morbid snow art. Watterson's imagination is astounding, and his artistic realization of Calvin & Hobbes, and their many adventures, are always delightful.

Title:	It's a Magical World: A Calvin and Hobbes Collection
Author:	Bill Watterson
Date published:	1996
Genre:	Humor
Series:	Calvin & Hobbes
Number of pages:	165
Notes:	Repeat reading.

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