Secondhand Chapter Book (Age 8-12) Bargain Book Box SP4142

Secondhand Chapter Book (Age 8-12) Bargain Book Box SP4142

Twenty Australian and British kids’ comedy paperbacks: six Morris Gleitzmans, four Roald Dahls, Markus Zusak’s When Dogs Cry, Puberty Blues with the Minogue and Greer forewords, Paul Jennings’ Unreal!, Captain Underpants, Tashi, Ishmael and two Barry Trotter parodies. The shelf of an Australian primary-school library circa 2005.

1. The Twits — Roald Dahl — Mr Twit hides food in his beard and Mrs Twit puts her glass eye in his beer, and they escalate from there until the monkeys glue every stick of furniture to the ceiling and the Twits shrink into their own clothes. Eighty pages of pure malice, and seven-year-olds adore it. Quentin Blake.
2. Teacher’s Pet — Morris Gleitzman — Ginger is the biggest troublemaker in Year Six, and she’s just found out her new teacher is literally allergic to her. She decides to be good for once, which is harder than being bad. Gleitzman’s funniest school book, with a mouse called Mitch.
3. Two Weeks with the Queen — Morris Gleitzman — Colin’s little brother has cancer, so Colin goes to London to ask the Queen for the world’s best doctor. The Queen doesn’t answer, but a man called Ted does, and his partner is dying of AIDS in the hospital next door. Two hundred and fifty thousand copies, and still the book that makes eleven-year-olds cry and laugh in the same chapter.
4. Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space — Dav Pilkey — George and Harold replace the lunch ladies with aliens by accident, the aliens turn the school into zombie nerds, and only a principal in his underpants can save them. The third one, with the Flip-O-Rama pages kids wear out.
5. The Big Big Big Book of Tashi — Anna & Barbara Fienberg & Kim Gamble — Tashi came to Australia on a swan from a far-off land, and he’s outwitted a dragon, a giant, a witch and the Baron, and he tells Jack all about it. Seven Tashi books in one; the Australian series every six-year-old has had read aloud.
6. Puberty Blues — Kathy Lette & Gabrielle Carey — Cronulla, 1979: Debbie and Sue want into the surfie gang, and the price is panel vans, bad sex and watching the boys surf. Written by two eighteen-year-olds, banned from school libraries, and the sharpest book about being a teenage girl Australia has produced. New forewords by Kylie Minogue and Germaine Greer.
7. Worry Warts — Morris Gleitzman — Keith’s parents are miserable, so he paints the fruit shop in rainbow stripes and then runs away to Queensland to dig for opals to save their marriage. The sequel to Misery Guts, and the funnier one.
8. The Day Grandma Came to Stay (and Spoilt My Life) — Diana Kidd — Grandma moves in, takes the good bedroom, rearranges everything and turns out to have a past nobody expected. An Australian family comedy with a lot of heart under the grumbling.
9. When Dogs Cry — Markus Zusak — Cameron Wolfe is the quiet brother, the one who watches, and he’s fallen for Octavia, who used to go out with his brother Rube. The third Wolfe brothers book from the Book Thief author, and the one he says taught him to write.
10. Boy: Tales of Childhood — Roald Dahl — The Great Mouse Plot, the sweet shop woman with the filthy hands, the beatings at Repton, the summers in Norway. Dahl’s real childhood is where every villainous headmistress and evil aunt came from, and he tells it like fiction.
11. The Witches — Roald Dahl — A boy and his Norwegian grandmother at a seaside hotel discover a convention of witches planning to turn every child in England into a mouse. The boy gets turned into a mouse too, and he doesn’t get turned back. Dahl’s bravest ending, and the Grand High Witch is his best villain.
12. Water Wings — Morris Gleitzman — Pearl’s guinea pig Winston dies, her mum’s new boyfriend is moving in, and a grandmother she’s never met turns up at the door with secrets. One of Gleitzman’s sadder books, and one of his best.
13. The Other Facts of Life — Morris Gleitzman — Ben finds out about world hunger from a TV documentary and goes on hunger strike at his dad’s butcher shop. His dad is not amused. Gleitzman’s very first novel, from 1985.
14. Worm Story — Morris Gleitzman — Wilton is a worm who lives in an intestine, and when his host gets sick he has to find a way out through the body. Gleitzman says it’s about friendship; it’s also about poo.
15. The Magic Finger — Roald Dahl — The girl next door gets angry at the Gregg family for shooting ducks, points her finger, and the Greggs wake up the size of birds with the ducks living in their house and holding the guns. Forty pages, and it’s never left anyone who read it.
16. Why Did the Underwear Cross the Road? — Gordon Korman — Justin’s class is on a trip to the city, there’s a dare involving underwear and a busy intersection, and Korman keeps upping it. American school slapstick for the Captain Underpants crowd.
17. Going Solo — Roald Dahl — Dahl goes to Tanganyika for Shell, the war starts, he learns to fly Hurricanes, crashes in the Libyan desert and fights over Greece. The sequel to Boy, and the better book: an adventure story that happens to be true.
18. Unreal! — Paul Jennings — Eight stories: a ghost in a lighthouse, a boy who turns into a tree, a pie that wins a competition it shouldn’t, and the one with the wunderpants. The 1985 book that made Jennings, and the source of Round the Twist.
19. Ishmael and the Return of the Dugongs — Michael Gerard Bauer — Year Ten, the debating team’s back, the Dugongs are reforming as a band, and Ishmael Leseur is still trying to stop being the kid with the name. Sequel to Don’t Call Me Ishmael, and as funny.
20. Barry Trotter and the Shameless Parody / Barry Trotter and the Unnecessary Sequel — Michael Gerber — Barry is twenty-two and still at Hogwash, Lon Measly is his best friend, and the school is about to be turned into a theme park. Two Harry Potter parodies that are funnier than they have any right to be.