Funny Selections for Teens

This booklist was compiled and annotated by the Young Adult Librarians representing the public libraries in Monroe County. It was designed and distributed by the Young Adult Section of the Consultant Services Office in the Monroe County Library System.

Squashed by Joan Bauer
Sixteen-year-old Ellie Morgan has two major weight problems to manage: decreasing her own personal bulk and increasing the size of Max, her beloved homegrown pumpkin. In the process she strengthens her relationship with her father and meets a young man with interests similar to her own.

A Royal Pain by Ellen Conford
Abby Adams is shocked to discover that, due to a mix-up at birth, she is actually the legitimate princess of the tiny kingdom of Saxony Coburn. Life as an adored princess seems a fantasy come true until Abby realizes that she is to be married off to the odious Prince Casimir...unless she can quickly come up with a better plan.

Murder in a Pig's Eye by Lynn Hall
After Henry Siler injures his arm he hires sixteen-year-old Bodie Tureen to do the farm chores. Where is Mrs. Siler? Has Henry done her in? Where would he hide a 200-pound dead wife? Could it be on the farm with thousands of places to investigate? Bodie checks them all.

Shoebag by Mary James
Shoebag's just a young cockroach looking for some crumbs when suddenly his worst dream comes true...he turns into a little boy! Young teens will chortle over the tale of how he changed the lives of those around him before returning to his former life as an insect.

The Harmony Arms by Ron Koertge
Gabriel dreads having to spend the summer in L.A. with his divorced father and his constant companion -- a funny hand puppet named Timmy the Otter. But when Gabriel and his father move into the Harmony Arms apartments, where the other residents include a roller-blading psychic and a commercials actress with a film-obsessed teenage daughter, Timmy suddenly doesn't seem so strange.

Losing Joe's Place by Gordon Korman
Joe entrusts his rented apartment to his younger brother Jason for the summer months. Jason's best-laid plans of frolic and fun suddenly turn from great to ghastly as landlord bills and uninvited guests begin to surface.

A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag by Gordon Korman
When eleven-year-old Sean is paired with luckless Raymond Jardine for a major English project, more than his grade-point average is at stake.

Pageant by Kathryn Lasky
Sarah Benjamin discovers that coping with life in an exclusive, very Christian, and impossibly stuffy girls school can be both hilarious and painful. As a Jewish student and one of only three Kennedy supporters on the eve of his election, she wonders if she can endure four more years at Stuart Hall.

Anything Can Happen in High School (And It Usually Does) by Will McCants
When gorgeous Student Leadership Council member Janet Brooks dumps T.J. Durant, he'll do anything to win her back. "Anything" turns out to be "Radical Wave," a student service club composed of "outsiders" like surfers, geeks and losers.

The Mouse Rap by Walter Dean Myers
Fourteen-year-old Mouse and his friends in a Harlem neighborhood enjoy an unforgettable and hilarious summer rapping, romancing, and recovering lost gangster loot.

Harris and Me: A Summer Remembered by Gary Paulsen
An eleven-year-old city boy, sent to live with relatives on their farm, meets his distant cousin Harris for the first time. Through one zany adventure after another, the narrator becomes acquainted with, and finds an affinity for, small town farm life.

Bel-Air Bambi and the Mall Rats by Richard Peck
After their father's business fails, Bambi, Buffie, and Brick are forced to move from "cool" Bel-Air to totally hick Hickory Fork, a small town terrorized by a high school gang. It's the town mouse-country mouse theme with a twist of lemon for young adult readers.