14 Best Books for First Graders That Are Actually Funny

First grade is a strange place in a kid's reading life.

One child is sounding out words and celebrating every sentence. Another is tearing through easy readers. A third is ready for a chapter book as long as there are still plenty of pictures.

And all three of them will happily sit on the same rug laughing at the same ridiculous read-aloud.

So a first-grade book list shouldn't pretend there's one magic reading level.

I'm Jungle Jimmy the Book Explorer, children's author, dad, and longtime performer for kids. Readit the Book Worm is my childlike sidekick, and we've gone back through our own reviews looking for books that earn a spot with first graders.

Not books with "ages 6 to 8" printed somewhere on a product page.

Books that give a first grader something to actually do.

Some are good for beginning independent reading. Some beg for two kids to take parts. Some stretch vocabulary. Some are here because a teacher can open them in front of a room and have everybody paying attention before page three.

And some are here because they're funny.

That helps more than people think.

One note on the scores. Every book below links to our full review, and the Belly Laugh Scale number is the funniness score from that review. This list is ordered by usefulness at first grade, not by the scale, so a three sometimes sits above a four.

Quick Picks

• Best for beginning independent reading: We Are in a Book!
• Best math that sneaks up on you: The Cookie Fiasco
• Best first book to read with a partner: Today I Will Fly!
• Best stretch book: Bink & Gollie
• Best classroom read-aloud: The Book With No Pictures
• Best first chapter book: Mercy Watson to the Rescue
• Best for reading the pictures: Sam & Dave Dig a Hole
• Best first week of school: We Don't Eat Our Classmates
• Best art-table disaster: Too Much Glue
• Best for talking it over afterward: Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type
• Best funny-spooky: Creepy Pair of Underwear!
• Best point of view lesson: The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!
• Best book that deserves voices: The Legend of Rock Paper Scissors
• Best quiet conversation starter: The Bad Seed

What Makes a Book Work in First Grade?

First graders don't all read at the same level, and they aren't supposed to.

So this list deliberately mixes beginning readers, picture books, classroom read-alouds, shared reads, and one early chapter book.

For independent reading I want books that hand a developing reader some help: manageable chunks of text, useful repetition, expressive pictures, white space, speech bubbles, predictable patterns, short chapters.

For read-alouds I want something different. Does the book give the adult something to perform? Is there a good place to pause? Will kids predict what's coming? Are the pictures telling jokes the words never mention? Is there something worth talking about once everybody stops laughing?

Both kinds belong here.

1. Best for Beginning Independent Reading: We Are in a Book!

By Mo Willems

Gerald and Piggie discover they're inside a book.

Then they discover us.

That one idea turns reading itself into the game. The characters work out that somebody is saying their words aloud, Piggie immediately starts experimenting with this new power, and Gerald eventually discovers something far more alarming.

Books end.

For first graders this does several things at once. There are 256 words. Speech bubbles make it easy for two readers to split the parts. Willems' faces tell a child how a line should sound. And there's enough white space that the page doesn't look like work before anybody starts.

It took a 2011 Geisel Honor, which is the award for the most distinguished book for beginning readers, so this is not just my opinion.

Reading level: Lexile 200L, ATOS 0.9, Guided Reading Level H, 256 words.

Jungle Jimmy says: If I had one book to show a first grader that reading aloud is a performance and not an assignment, I'd start here.

Readit says: "You have to do the voices. I made that rule."

Belly Laugh Scale: 4/5, Big-Time Belly Laughs

Read the full We Are in a Book! review.

2. Best Math That Sneaks Up on You: The Cookie Fiasco

By Dan Santat

Four friends.

Three cookies.

Uh-oh.

Dan Santat takes a problem first graders understand instantly and lets the characters work themselves into a full cookie emergency over it.

That's what makes it useful in a classroom. You don't have to announce that it's time to discuss fairness or fractions. Put three cookies in front of four hungry characters and kids start solving it because they want to know who gets a cookie.

Santat wrote and illustrated it as part of the Elephant & Piggie Like Reading! series, so Gerald and Piggie turn up to introduce it and then get out of the way.

Jungle Jimmy says: Stop before the solution and let the room work on it. I'd be surprised if they let you keep reading without several plans of their own.

Readit says: "I would just get another cookie."

Apparently we have all been overthinking this.

Belly Laugh Scale: 3/5, Solid Chuckles

Read the full Cookie Fiasco review.

3. Best First Book to Read With a Partner: Today I Will Fly!

By Mo Willems

Piggie has decided she is going to fly.

Gerald has thoughts about this.

That's the whole engine, and it's enough.

This is a strong first-grade choice because a child can start genuinely owning the reading. The dialogue is clear, the characters are visually expressive, and two readers can split Gerald and Piggie between them.

There's also something to be said for handing a developing reader a book that is actually funny. Reading practice does not have to taste like vegetables.

Jungle Jimmy says: Two characters with opposite personalities are an invitation. Give one to each reader and get out of the way.

Readit says: "I would have tried jumping off something first. Not something high."

Thank you for adding that last part.

Belly Laugh Scale: 4/5, Big-Time Belly Laughs

Read the full Today I Will Fly! review.

4. Best Stretch Book: Bink & Gollie

By Kate DiCamillo and Alison McGhee, illustrated by Tony Fucile

Bink and Gollie are best friends.

They also get on each other's nerves.

Good. Now we have something to work with.

Across three short adventures they argue about outrageously colorful socks, deal with interruptions, survive a little jealousy involving a goldfish, and keep finding their way back to each other.

This stretches a first grader more than anything above it. Gollie in particular likes words that will need help. But Fucile's expressive art, the short exchanges and the three-story structure give a developing reader plenty to hold onto, and it won the 2011 Geisel Medal outright.

Reading level: Lexile 510L, ATOS 2.5, Guided Reading Level M, 858 words.

Jungle Jimmy says: Don't reject a book because a first grader doesn't know every word in it. Sometimes the unknown word is the reason to read the sentence together.

Readit says: "Gollie talks like she swallowed a dictionary."

Belly Laugh Scale: 3/5, Solid Chuckles

Read the full Bink & Gollie review.

5. Best Classroom Read-Aloud: The Book With No Pictures

By B.J. Novak

No pictures.

For first graders.

Stay with me.

The trick is that the person reading has to say whatever is printed on the page.

Whatever.

B.J. Novak takes that rule and uses it against the adult holding the book.

This isn't here because I expect a first grader to independently read the whole thing. It's here because read-alouds still matter enormously in first grade, and this one turns the adult into the entertainment.

The sillier you're willing to sound, the better it gets.

Jungle Jimmy says: Commit. If you're going to read this like you're announcing airport departures, pick a different book.

Readit says: "Make the grown-up read it."

Obviously.

Belly Laugh Scale: 5/5, Laugh-Out-Loud Legend

Read the full Book With No Pictures review.

6. Best First Chapter Book: Mercy Watson to the Rescue

By Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Chris Van Dusen

Mercy is a pig.

Mercy loves hot buttered toast.

Mr. and Mrs. Watson believe Mercy is extraordinary.

Those three facts explain a great deal.

When Mercy climbs into bed with the Watsons and the bed starts sinking through the floor, her humans decide she has gone for help.

Mercy has gone looking for food.

This is the bridge for a first grader who wants to carry around a real chapter book but still benefits from short chapters, large type and full-color pictures across all eighty pages.

DiCamillo also lets the vocabulary stretch. A child will need help here and there.

That's the point.

Jungle Jimmy says: It feels bigger without taking away everything that got the reader this far.

Readit says: "Everybody thinks she's rescuing them. She's thinking about food."

Correct.

Belly Laugh Scale: 4/5, Big-Time Belly Laughs

Read the full Mercy Watson to the Rescue review.

7. Best for Reading the Pictures: Sam & Dave Dig a Hole

By Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen

Sam and Dave are digging for something spectacular.

They keep missing it.

The kids can see that.

Sam and Dave cannot.

Which is exactly why I wanted it on a first-grade list.

Jon Klassen gives the reader information the characters don't have, so children have to read more than the printed sentences. They're watching position, direction, scale and visual clues, and the whole book is only 275 words.

A first grader who spots it gets the wonderful experience of knowing more than the characters.

That's powerful stuff.

Also funny.

Jungle Jimmy says: Watch the kids instead of the page for a minute. Somebody is going to be desperate to tell Sam and Dave where to dig.

Readit says: "NO! GO BACK!"

There it is.

Belly Laugh Scale: 4/5, Big-Time Belly Laughs

Read the full Sam & Dave Dig a Hole review.

8. Best First Week of School: We Don't Eat Our Classmates

By Ryan T. Higgins

Penelope Rex is starting school.

Unfortunately her classmates are children.

And children are delicious.

That's a problem.

Ryan T. Higgins takes a familiar first-grade concern, working out how to behave around other kids, and hands it to a dinosaur with considerably worse impulse control than most students.

Hopefully.

The school setting makes it especially useful early in the year, when a classroom is still becoming a community and everybody is learning that other people have feelings too.

It gets there without turning into a lecture.

Being a dinosaur helps.

Jungle Jimmy says: First graders understand classroom rules. They also understand that "don't eat your classmates" is an unusually memorable one.

Readit says: "She KNOWS she's not supposed to eat them."

Belly Laugh Scale: 5/5, Laugh-Out-Loud Legend

Read the full We Don't Eat Our Classmates review.

9. Best Art-Table Disaster: Too Much Glue

By Jason Lefebvre, illustrated by Zac Retz

Matty loves glue.

Not a reasonable amount of glue.

His teacher has rules about this. Matty has other plans, and he ends up stuck in the middle of his own enormous glue creation.

First graders know this world: classroom supplies, art projects, teacher instructions, and the irresistible urge to find out what happens if you use a little more.

And then more.

The school setting makes the ridiculous part feel close enough to be possible.

Please don't test the theory.

Jungle Jimmy says: Any book involving a kid stuck in glue already has a running start with a first-grade audience.

Readit says: "I want to try it."

No.

Belly Laugh Scale: 4/5, Big-Time Belly Laughs

Read the full Too Much Glue review.

10. Best for Talking It Over Afterward: Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type

By Doreen Cronin, illustrated by Betsy Lewin

Farmer Brown's cows have found a typewriter.

They have demands.

When Farmer Brown refuses, the cows stop giving milk.

Now first graders are watching a real disagreement unfold through notes, demands and responses, except the workers are cows and the sticking point is electric blankets.

Betsy Lewin's loose watercolor keeps it playful while Doreen Cronin gives the reader a repeated sound that's fun to see coming. It took a Caldecott Honor in 2001.

Jungle Jimmy says: This one leaves you plenty to talk about after the laughing. Who has the power? What's fair? What happens when neither side gives in?

Readit says: "How do the cows know how to type?"

I don't know.

I have additional questions about their labor organization.

Belly Laugh Scale: 4/5, Big-Time Belly Laughs

Read the full Click, Clack, Moo review.

11. Best Funny-Spooky: Creepy Pair of Underwear!

By Aaron Reynolds, illustrated by Peter Brown

Jasper Rabbit gets a pair of underwear.

They glow.

Then Jasper decides he doesn't want them.

The underwear did not receive that memo.

Good for first graders who enjoy being slightly creeped out without wanting an actually scary story. Peter Brown does enormous work with darkness, expression and that unmistakable green glow, and the repeated attempts to get rid of the things give the story a nice escalating rhythm.

Jungle Jimmy says: Funny-spooky is a useful little category. Kids get the thrill of being nervous while the ridiculousness keeps reminding them they're safe.

Readit says: "Throw them FARTHER."

Reasonable advice.

Belly Laugh Scale: 4/5, Big-Time Belly Laughs

Read the full Creepy Pair of Underwear! review.

12. Best Point of View Lesson: The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!

By Jon Scieszka, illustrated by Lane Smith

The Big Bad Wolf would like to explain himself.

Apparently we have all been hearing the wrong version.

First graders who already know The Three Little Pigs have the advantage here, because the fun depends on recognizing how this version bends the story they thought they knew.

That also makes it the easiest way into point of view I know.

Same basic events.

Very different storyteller.

Do we believe him?

That's where it gets interesting.

Jungle Jimmy says: Don't rush to answer whether the wolf is telling the truth. Ask the kids. Then stand back.

Readit says: "I don't trust him."

The jury has spoken.

Belly Laugh Scale: 4/5, Big-Time Belly Laughs

Read the full True Story of the 3 Little Pigs review.

13. Best Book That Deserves Voices: The Legend of Rock Paper Scissors

By Drew Daywalt, illustrated by Adam Rex

Rock is looking for a worthy opponent.

So are Paper and Scissors.

Eventually destiny does what destiny must.

This is the one I'd choose when the goal is pure read-aloud performance. The characters are absurdly serious about completely ridiculous battles, and Adam Rex makes their tiny world feel enormous.

First graders already know the game.

So the book starts with something they own and turns it into a legend.

Jungle Jimmy says: Do not whisper this book. It has no interest in being whispered.

Readit says: "ROCK WINS."

We haven't started the game.

Belly Laugh Scale: 5/5, Laugh-Out-Loud Legend

Read the full Legend of Rock Paper Scissors review.

14. Best Quiet Conversation Starter: The Bad Seed

By Jory John, illustrated by Pete Oswald

The Bad Seed is bad.

He cuts in line. He lies. He doesn't listen.

And he knows exactly what everybody thinks of him.

Then we learn a little more.

This earns its place because first graders are old enough to see the difference between doing something bad and being a bad person. Pete Oswald keeps the Seed readable even when the words aren't telling us everything he feels.

There's humor here, but this pick has a quieter job on the list.

It can start a conversation.

Jungle Jimmy says: Labels stick. First graders figure that out sooner than adults tend to notice.

Readit says: "He's not bad ALL the time."

Exactly.

Belly Laugh Scale: 3/5, Solid Chuckles

Read the full Bad Seed review.

So Which One Should You Pick?

If your first grader is just starting to read on their own, begin with We Are in a Book! or Today I Will Fly!

If they're ready to stretch, try Bink & Gollie. When they start eyeing chapter books, bring in Mercy Watson to the Rescue.

For a classroom read-aloud, reach for The Book With No Pictures, We Don't Eat Our Classmates, Click, Clack, Moo or The Legend of Rock Paper Scissors, depending on how loud you're prepared to let the room get.

For a kid who loves reading the pictures and catching what characters miss, hand them Sam & Dave Dig a Hole.

Want funny-spooky? Creepy Pair of Underwear!

Want something that leads into a real conversation? The Bad Seed.

Why There Are Fourteen and Not Fifteen

Because I only found fourteen that genuinely belonged.

I could pad this to a rounder number in about five minutes. Every list on the internet does. But the fifteenth book would be here to make the headline tidier, not because a first-grade teacher needed it, and you'd be able to tell.

Fourteen it is.

One Last Thing About First Grade

There isn't one right book, because there isn't one kind of first-grade reader.

The goal isn't to race a kid toward the hardest book they can technically survive.

Give them books they can read.

Give them books they can grow into.

And keep giving them books they cannot possibly read alone yet but desperately want somebody to read out loud again.

Those count too.

Especially those.

If your reader is a bit younger, we sorted the same shelf by age five and age six. If they're further along, the seven-year-old list brings in graphic novels and real chapter books. By second grade the shelf is sorted by reading progression instead. And if the problem isn't skill but willingness, that's a different list entirely.

Keep exploring, Story Seekers!

Jungle Jimmy & Readit