Humorous Fiction Family

Jesper Jinx is 11, and probably the unluckiest person in all of Puffington Hill. Everything he touches seems to end up in sweet disaster. Hence his nickname "Jinx". In this fifth book of Jesper Jinx's wonderfully wicked adventures, chaos unfolds when Jake the school bully meets an ancient chocolate bar. Soon, things get even weirder when Jesper's mum can't bake her cherry pie because her precious cherry tree's gone missing. And then, to top it all off, Snowy the Cat decides to go on a hunger strike.

Ten-year-old Darcy Burdock is one of life's noticers. Curious, smart as a whip, funny and fiercely loyal, she sees the extraordinary in the everyday and the wonder in the world around her.

Woody wants to get un-weird - and fast! And he'll find help in the most unlikely of places. Woody is forever worried about being different. He thinks himself weird and a bit of a wuss, and two bullies, Della and Casey, make sure he doesn't forget that. It doesn't help that his mum is slightly bonkers. She dresses up as a sheep for a living - mostly for her job as a children's entertainer. And not to mention the fact that she forces Woody to wear old granny jumpers that she finds down the local charity shop.

The King of Rock 'n' Roll lives! And he's Josh's dad. When 13-year-old Josh finds out that he has to stay with his dad in Chicago for a few months, he's not too thrilled. But when he arrives at the airport, he's simply devastated. His father - who used to be a scatterbrained but pretty normal shoe salesman - has become...Elvis. Well, a sideburn-wearing, hip-twisting, utterly embarrassing Elvis impersonator. Josh is determined to keep his dad's identity a secret, but on his very first day at his new school, a note appears on his locker.

Lauren and her best friend, Tara, have always done everything together. So when they don't have any classes together in sixth grade, it's disastrous. The solution? Trying out for the school play. Lauren, who loves to sing, wonders if maybe she will be the star instead of Tara this time. But when the show is cast, Lauren lands in the ensemble, while Tara scores the lead role. Their teacher explains: Lauren just doesn't look the part of the all-American girl. What audience would believe that she, half-Jewish, half-Chinese Lauren, was the everygirl star from Pleasant Valley, USA?

Tristan isn't gifted or talented like his sister Jeanine, and he's always been okay with that because he can make a perfect chocolate chip cookie and he lives in the greatest city in the world. But his life takes a turn for the worse when his parents decide to move to middle-of-nowhere Petersville - a town with one street and no restaurants. His suspicions about his new town are confirmed when he's tricked into believing the local general store has life-changing chocolate cream doughnuts, when in fact the owner hasn't made them in years.

Arcade is a 12-year-old boy who has a unique gift that allows him to travel into another dimension with the special token he received from a mysterious woman. However, he doesn't have an answer when his teachers ask his class the same simple question every year: What do you want to be when you grow up? Arcade begins to pick up books on everything from entrepreneurship to football to piano to card tricks. As he dives into books, he discovers that the possibilities for his future are endless.

When Santa's best friend, Peppermint Bark, gets left in a chimney on Christmas Day, it's up to Chris, Holly, and Ivy to return the pup to the North Pole before it's too late.

Some people rob banks because they’re greedy. Others enjoy the adrenaline rush. Me? I robbed a bank because of guilt. Specifically: guilt and a Nepalese scented candle.... When 15-year-old Dylan accidentally burns down the house of the girl he’s trying to impress, he feels that only a bold gesture can make it up to her. A gesture like robbing a bank to pay for her new home.

There's nothing Jake likes more than some good trash-picking, so when his elderly neighbors move out and leave an especially promising-looking pile of household refuse on the curb, he goes right for it. He only has the chance to grab one box before his mom catches him and orders him in for dinner, though. When mysterious goings-on begin to occur in the neighborhood, the trio investigates the hidden box from Jack's garage. In it, they find the Secret Parent's Handbook.

As her cousin Duke - the bully of Blue Wing, Minnesota - dangles her precariously from a steel bridge 20 feet above the flood-swollen Mississippi, Claire doesn't expect to softly land on a passing boat or to see Duke floundering in the river. And yet as these unlikely events - and more - suddenly begin to happen, some in the sleepy river town don't seem at all surprised. But when a rhino's horn suddenly sprouts from Duke's face and his parents turn to stone, 12-year-old Claire decides to take action.

In the remarkable, bizarre, and heart-wrenching summer before Cullen Witter’s senior year of high school, he is forced to examine everything he thinks he understands about his small and painfully dull Arkansas town. His cousin overdoses; his town becomes absurdly obsessed with the alleged reappearance of an extinct woodpecker; and most troubling of all, his sensitive, gifted fifteen-year-old brother, Gabriel, suddenly and inexplicably disappears.

Being a kid is like having two permanent police officers watching you all the time - even when you're going to the bathroom. At least that’s how it feels to Billy March. He’s been grounded for 63% of the past month. The thing is, every time Billy almost gets his parents’ trust back, his mind wanders off, and he causes another disaster! Like the time he and his best friend Keenan decided to play droid war in a parking lot — and ended up launching a shopping cart into a car…

Henry "Hen" Birnbaum's sister, Sarah, missing for over a year, has come home unexpectedly, with no explanation at all. But he can't leave well enough alone; Hen needs to figure out why she disappeared, even if she won't tell him. It's not like he has anything better to do. His girlfriend just dumped him and kicked him out of their band. He can't play the bass worth crap anyway. His social life consists of night after night of VH1 marathons with his best friend and next-door neighbor, the neurotic Emma Wood.

An Na has earned critical raves for her young adult fiction. She has won the Michael L. Printz Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award. In The Fold, she examines the complications surrounding teenage plastic surgery. Joyce is thrilled when her aunt becomes suddenly wealthy. But when her aunt decides Joyce needs a makeover, Joyce must decide if she is ready to go under the knife to become the popular swan she's always wanted to be.

Boys are like buses for TJ. No sign of one for ages and then two come along at the same time! First there's charmer, Ollie Axford, and just when TJ has decided that he could be the one, old flame, Luke De Biasi tells her that he wants to re-kindle their romance.TJ is torn between the two boys, and unhappy that events have conspired to make her appear to be a two-timer.

What do you when your world is turned upside down? If you're five young rats with music in your soul and dancing in your blood, you head for the Hollow, and the chance to dance at the Boom Boom Room.

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!

Stell Dir vor, es gibt sie noch, die gute alte DDR - leistungsstark, erfinderisch, nischenorientiert und auf Weltniveau wie eh und je. Unsere sympathischen Helden: Familie Lehmann. Sie bewältigt den real existierenden Alltag im fortgeschrittenen Sozialismus des Jahres 2000. Die zentrale Frage: Muss man eigentlich jeden Blödsinn aus dem Westen mitmachen? Die Antwort der Partei: "Ja, Genossen, aber anders."

One stormy night, sixth-grader Jacob Doolittle finds a baby in a basket on his front porch. To Jake's surprise, his mother decides to care for the baby, hoping its mother will return. However that surprise is nothing compared to what happens to "Little Dumpling" the first time there's a full moon….