Humorous YA Literature

Adams, Douglas. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  After Earth is demolished to make way for a new hyperspatial expressway, Arthur Dent begins to hitch-hike through space.After Earth is demolished to make way for a new hyperspatial expressway, Arthur Dent begins to hitch-hike through space.After Earth is demolished to make way for a new hyper spatial expressway, Arthur Dent begins to hitch-hike through space.

Anderson, Laurie Halse. Prom. Eighteen-year-old Ash wants nothing to do with senior prom, but when disaster strikes and her desperate friend, Nat, needs her help to get it back on track, Ash's involvement transforms her life.

Bauer, Joan. Thwonk.  A cupid doll comes to life and offers romantic assistance to A.J., a teenage photographer suffering from unrequited love.

Blacker, Terence. Boy2Girl. After the death of his mother, thirteen-year-old Sam comes to live with his cousin and as a prank, he dresses up as a girl for school, but it soon gets out of hand.

Bradley, Alex. 24 Girls in 7 Days. Jack Grammar, average American senior, has no date to the prom. Or so he thinks. Percy and Natalie, Jack's so-called best friends, post an ad in the classified section of the online version of the school newspaper. They figure it couldn't hurt. After all, there's not much in this world sadder than Jack's love life. Soon Percy and Natalie have assembled a list of girls eager to go to the prom with Jack, including one mysterious girl known only as Fancy Pants. He has just seven days to meet and date them before he will ask one special girl to the prom.

Cabot, Meg. Princess Diaries, Mediator Series, various titles.

Castellucci, Cecil. Beige. Katy, a quiet French Canadian teenager, reluctantly leaves Montréal to spend time with her estranged father, an aging Los Angeles punk rock legend.

Castellucci, Cecil. Boy Proof. Feeling alienated from everyone around her, Los Angeles high school senior and cinephile Victoria Denton hides behind the identity of a favorite movie character until an interesting new boy arrives at school and helps her realize that there is more to life than just the movies.

Cohn, Rachel and David Levithan. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. High school student Nick O'Leary, member of a rock band, meets college-bound Norah Silverberg and asks her to be his girlfriend for five minutes in order to avoid his ex-sweetheart.

Colfer, Eoin. The Wish List.  Meg Finn is in trouble. She's dead, but not at peace--she's in limbo, her good deeds perfectly balanced against her bad deeds; Heaven or Hell wait, a tip of the scale away. So she's back on Earth trying to tip the scale to the good by helping her last victim, and her former "partner" is also back, trying to force her to tip the scale to the bad.

Colfer, Eoin. Artemis Fowl Series.  When a twelve-year-old evil genius tries to restore his family fortune by capturing a fairy and demanding a ransom in gold, the fairies fight back with magic, technology, and a particularly nasty troll.

Danzinger, Paula. P.S. Longer Letter Later. Twelve-year-old best friends Elizabeth and Tara-Starr continue their friendship through letter-writing after Tara-Starr's family moves to another state.

Douglas, Lola. True Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet. Teen movie star Morgan Carter retreats to a small Midwestern town to recuperate anonymously after an overdose and rehabilitation, recording her thoughts in a diary.

Gaiman, Neil and Terry Pratchett. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter—the world's only totally reliable guide to the future--the world will end on a Saturday.  Next Saturday, in fact.  Just after tea...

Gantos, Jack. Various YA Titles.

Garfinkle, D.L. Storky: How I Lost my Nickname and Won the Girl. Fourteen-year-old high school student Michael "Storky" Pomerantz's journal describes his freshman year, from dealing with his mother's dating his dentist to attempting to win the heart of the girl he loves.

Green, John. An Abundance of Katherines. Having been recently dumped for the nineteenth time by a girl named Katherine, recent high school graduate and former child prodigy Colin sets off on a road trip with his best friend to try to find some new direction in life while also trying to create a mathematical formula to explain his relationships.

Haaisen, Carl. Hoot. Roy, who is new to his small Florida community, becomes involved in another boy's attempt to save a colony of burrowing owls from a proposed construction site.

Jinks, Catherine. Pagan’s Crusade. In twelfth-century Jerusalem, orphaned sixteen-year-old Pagan is assigned to work for Lord Roland, a Templar knight, as Saladin's armies close in on the Holy City.

Korman, Gordon. Son of the Mob. Seventeen-year-old Vince's life is constantly complicated by the fact that he is the son of a powerful Mafia boss, a relationship that threatens to destroy his romance with the daughter of an FBI agent.

Limb, Sue. Girl, 15, Charming but Insane. Fifteen-year-old Jess, living with her mum, separated from her father in Cornwall, and with a best friend who seems to do everything perfectly, finds her own assets through humor.

Lubar, David. Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie. While navigating his first year of high school and awaiting the birth of his new baby brother, Scott loses old friends and gains some unlikely new ones as he hones his skills as a writer.

Miller, Sarah. Inside the Mind of Gideon Rayburn. Miller has written a funny and penetrating story about students at a New England prep school. In a unique twist, the narrator, a female classmate of new student Gideon Rayburn, is inside his mind and privy to his thoughts and feelings.

Morris, Gerald. The Squire’s Tale Series. In medieval England, fourteen-year-old Terence finds his tranquil existence suddenly changed when he becomes the squire of the young Gawain of Orkney and accompanies him on a long quest, proving Gawain's worth as a knight and revealing an important secret about his own true identity.

Paulsen, Gary. The Schernoff Discoveries. Two junior high boys lose their "uncool" status when they kiss girls and foil some football team thugs in this comedy set in the 1950s.

Peck, Richard. A Year Down Yonder. During the recession of 1937, fifteen-year-old Mary Alice is sent to live with her feisty, larger-than-life grandmother in rural Illinois and comes to a better understanding of this fearsome woman.

Pratchett, Terry. The Wee Free Men. A young witch-to-be named Tiffany teams up with the Wee Free Men, a clan of six-inch-high blue men, to rescue her baby brother and ward off a sinister invasion from Fairyland.

Rees, Douglas. Vampire High. When his family moves from California to New Sodom, Massachusetts and Cody enters Vlad Dracul Magnet School, many things seem strange, from the dark-haired, pale-skinned, supernaturally strong students to Charon, the wolf who guides him around campus on the first day.

Rennison, Louise. Georgia Nicolson Series.

Shulman, Polly. Enthusiasm. Julie and Ashleigh, high school sophomores and Jane Austen fans, seem to fall for the same Mr. Darcy-like boy and struggle to hide their true feelings from one another while rehearsing for a school musical.

Shusterman, Neil. The Schwa Was Here. A Brooklyn eighth-grader nicknamed Antsy befriends the Schwa, an "invisible-ish" boy who is tired of blending into his surroundings and going unnoticed by nearly everyone.

Spinelli, Jerry. Crash. Seventh-grader John "Crash" Coogan has always been comfortable with his tough, aggressive behavior, until his relationship with an unusual Quaker boy and his grandfather's stroke make him consider the meaning of friendship and the importance of family.

St. James, James. Freak Show. Having faced teasing that turned into a brutal attack, Christianity expressed as persecution, and the loss of his only real friend when he could no longer keep his crush under wraps, seventeen-year-old Billy Bloom, a drag queen, decides the only to become fabulous again is to run for Homecoming Queen at his elite, private school near Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Tashjian, Janet. The Gospel According to Larry and Vote for Larry. Seventeen-year-old Josh, a loner-philosopher who wants to make a difference in the world, tries to maintain his secret identity as the author of a web site that is receiving national attention.

Vizzini, Ned. Be More Chill. Badly in need of self-confidence and a change of image, high school nerd Jeremy Heere swallows a pill-sized super computer that is supposed to help him get whatever he wants.

Wizner, Jake. Spanking Shakespeare. Shakespeare Shapiro navigates a senior year fraught with feelings of insecurity while writing the memoir of his embarrassing life, worrying about his younger brother being cooler than he is, and having no prospects of ever getting a girlfriend.