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A lively bridge between picture books and more independent reading: three comic adventures combine baking, mystery, ghosts and imaginative gadgets. Its illustrations, energetic language, alliteration and recurring characters make the book especially suited to shared reading or a child building confidence.

Expect a warm family story with humour and emotional depth. Batty’s efforts to earn money, her singing talent and the changing relationships around her provide several strands beyond the central grief.

A warm, comic story about adjusting to a new baby in the household, seen through a pet’s feelings of confusion and displacement. Its appeal lies in giving family change an animal-centred, humorous perspective.

A lively comic adventure that may make reading feel playful and social, especially through visual storytelling, absurd humour and drawing prompts. Its energetic action and deliberately rough language sit alongside kindness, loyalty and forgiveness.

A playful animal tale builds humour around a toothache and a reversal of fortune. Its clearest offering is a simple situation in which laughing at another character’s discomfort comes back to the laugher.

Expect a playful extraterrestrial rescue adventure involving a missing spaceship, Area 51, legendary aliens and deep-freeze discovery.

Expect a brisk, creepy fantasy balancing frightening school imagery with jokes and determined sibling teamwork. Its emotional pressure comes from abandonment, captivity and mind control rather than realistic school life.

A warm football adventure uses Pickles’s humorous viewpoint to explore a family trying to stay together while money problems and housing insecurity affect everyday life.

Its emotional centre is the search for a new meaning of home.

Expect a brisk, comic fantasy in which an ancient Egyptian pharaoh becomes an unexpected household guest. Its appeal lies in absurd situations, family reactions and a light adventure involving grave robbers.

Expect a series of self-contained, startling tales rather than one continuous plot. Children encounter odd powers, unusual creatures, bodily changes, animals in danger and emotionally difficult family situations, usually within a comic or bizarre framework.

This is a lively Greek-myth fantasy where comic gods and a young goddess accompany Elliott through danger. Its emotional centre is a child trying to care for his unwell mother while protecting his family’s home.

This is a historical novel about friendship under Nazi persecution, combining Felix’s optimism and humour with fear, loss and moral danger. Its child’s-eye viewpoint may make a vast history feel immediate, while keeping the human cost in view.

Expect a fast, twist-filled fantasy adventure that treats a frightening grandmother as an exaggerated comic villain. Joe’s difficult family life sits alongside grotesque peril and suspense, so the tone is more unsettling than an ordinary family story.

Expect comic, twist-led stories rather than one continuous adventure. Children encounter ordinary problems, relationships and small acts that can affect people around them, with serious subjects treated through persistent humour.

Expect short, visual comic scenes rather than a sustained adventure: Vader and young Luke navigate play, food, questions and ordinary father–son moments against a Star Wars backdrop.

This is a comic family story about children learning to see beyond their grandmother’s intimidating manner. Its linked episodes mix practical hardship, rule-breaking schemes and generosity, with the relationship developing across successive summers.

A playful farmyard mystery built around mistaken appearances: Bitzer’s hunger, a strange howl and a barn shadow make an ordinary night seem threatening. The humour comes from competing explanations and an apparently outrageous plan.

A coming-of-age story about leaving a familiar place, falling in love, and facing painful change. Stephen’s compassion, humour and eventual movement towards self-acceptance are central to its emotional arc.

Use the comic meanness to explore how behaviour can change, rather than labelling a child as good or bad.