Let’s talk about early chapter books, shall we?  You know, those skinny little books with the giant fonts and cheap beige paper and about five hundred books in the series so far…hey, wait!  Where are you going?

Early chapter books are, more often than not, something that booksellers like to forget about.  We love putting fantastic picture books in kids’ hands, and do we ever love those amazing middle grade novels, but what in the world are we supposed to do in the meantime?  Sometimes we just point towards the spinner racks of I Can Reads, and if the readers in question are more advanced than that, we gesture weakly at the Usual Suspects (i.e. something with a magical house in a tree or a troublesome first-grader).  If we’re really honest with ourselves as booksellers, we’ll admit it:  it can be hard to find an early chapter book that really gets your toes a tappin’.

To that end, I humbly submit the following two books to you.  They’re funny.  They’ve got great art.  They’re both the first in a series.  And guess what else?  They’re good.

FRANKIE PICKLE AND THE CLOSET OF DOOM by Eric Wight is a positively delightful combination of chapter book and graphic novel. Frankie, our hero, is forever battling with his mother about the state of his room.  When she finally relents and allows him to keep his quarters as he pleases, he is overjoyed.  Soon pyramids of laundry are piling up and sandwiches in various states of decay are trapped between layers of mess in his room, and he couldn’t be happier.  There are, however, downsides to living the slob lifestyle, and after facing the creatures of doom manufactured by his own filth, he starts to contemplate changing his disgusting ways.  What really works here is the balance between the art and the text, where we jump from the graphic novel drawings of Frankie’s imagination back to the prose of his real life.  Frankie imagines himself as a variety of familiar hero-types, and he brings his little dog Argyle along for the ride.  The chapters are only several pages each, which tends to make reluctant readers less skittish.  Simon and Schuster also wisely chose a paper-over-board format, which will stand up to multiple readings.  The sequel should be out in early 2010, and I hope more FRANKIE adventures will be forthcoming.  If this isn’t in your early reader section, you’re missing out on something great!

HORRID HENRY (and the sequels) by Francesca Simon is a perfectly terrible book, and I mean that in the nicest possible sense.  It features Horrid Henry, who is indeed a babysitter’s nightmare, and his little brother, Perfect Peter.  HORRID HENRY, in my mind, is basically what would happen if you combined the old “Goofus and Gallant” comics from Highlights magazine with Roald Dahl.  Each book contains four stories about Henry and his family and friends, including his weary parents, his neighbor Moody Margaret, and of course, his teacher, Miss Battle-Axe.  It is worth the price of admission just to read the story where Horrid Henry decides to be well-behaved for a day just to make his saintly brother insane.  If you’re looking for books with “a message,” you should try elsewhere, but if you’re looking for something to make the young readers in your life laugh out loud, look no further.  I should mention these are imported from the UK, where they’ve been a smash hit for years, and we are finally lucky enough to have them here.  There are six books available currently, with more on the way.