Funny Girl is a collection of uproarious stories, rollicking comics, rib-tickling wit, and more, from 25 of today’s funniest female writers for kids. What could be funnier than family? Read stories about Ursula Brown's grandmother driving her on a road trip to disaster, Lisa Brown's little brother getting a Tic-Tac stuck up his nose, and Carmen Agra Deedy's mom setting the bathtub on fire. What could be funnier than friends? Pretty much nothing, as Rita Williams-Garcia shows two besties hatching a bird-brained scheme to get on to a TV talk show, and Deborah Underwood introduces a dynamic dog-and-cat duo teaming up on a pet advice column. What could be funnier than YOU? Tell your future with Mad Libs, discover your Chinese Zodiac sign with Lenore Look, and learn the best tricks of the comedy trade from professional humorists like Adrianne Chalepah and Delaney Yeager. With clever contributions from award-winning and bestselling authors including Cece Bell, Sophie Blackall, Libba Bray, Shannon Hale, Lisa Graff, and Raina Telgemeier, this anthology of funny girls will make you laugh until you cry. Or cry until you laugh. Or maybe you won't cry at all. Either way, you'll definitely laugh. Funny Girl isn’t just an anthology: it’s a cause, a mission, a movement. Girls are funny. Now it’s time for the world to know it.

For several generations, comics were regarded as a boys’ club—created by, for, and about men and boys. In the twenty-first century, however, comics have seen a rise of female creators, characters, and readers. While this sudden presence of women and girls in comics is being regarded as new and noteworthy, the observation is not true for the genre’s entire history. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the medium was enjoyed equally by both sexes, and girls were the protagonists of some of the earliest, most successful, and most influential comics. In Funny Girls: Guffaws, Guts, and Gender in Classic American Comics, Michelle Ann Abate examines the important but long-overlooked cadre of young female protagonists in US comics during the first half of the twentieth century. She treats characters ranging from Little Orphan Annie and Nancy to Little Lulu, Little Audrey of the Harvey Girls, and Li’l Tomboy—a group that collectively forms a tradition of Funny Girls in American comics. Abate demonstrates the massive popularity these Funny Girls enjoyed, revealing their unexplored narrative richness, aesthetic complexity, and critical possibility. Much of the humor in these comics arose from questioning gender roles, challenging social manners, and defying the status quo. Further, they embodied powerful points of collection about both the construction and intersection of race, class, gender, and age, as well as popular perceptions about children, representations of girlhood, and changing attitudes regarding youth. Finally, but just as importantly, these strips shed light on another major phenomenon within comics: branding, licensing, and merchandising. Collectively, these comics did far more than provide amusement—they were serious agents for cultural commentary and sociopolitical change.

A brilliant novel from the bestselling author of High Fidelity, About a Boy, and A Long Way Down. Set in 1960's London, Funny Girl is a lively account of the adventures of the intrepid young Sophie Straw as she navigates her transformation from provincial ingénue to television starlet amid a constellation of delightful characters. Insightful and humorous, Nick Hornby's latest does what he does best: endears us to a cast of characters who are funny if flawed, and forces us to examine ourselves in the process.

By turns darkly menacing and bright with love and resilience, The Talk-Funny Girl is the story of one young woman’s remarkable courage, a kind of road map for the healing of early abuse, and a testament to the power of kindness and love. In one of the poorest parts of rural New Hampshire, teenage girls have been disappearing, snatched from back country roads, never to be seen alive again. For seventeen-year-old Marjorie Richards, the fear raised by these abductions is the backdrop to what she lives with in her own home, every day. Marjorie has been raised by parents so intentionally isolated from normal society that they have developed their own dialect, a kind of mountain hybrid of English that displays both their ignorance of and disdain for the wider world. Marjorie is tormented by her classmates, who call her “The Talk-funny girl,” but as the nearby factory town sinks deeper into economic ruin and as her parents fall more completely under the influence of a sadistic cult leader, her options for escape dwindle. But then, thanks to a loving aunt, Marjorie is hired by a man, himself a victim of abuse, who is building what he calls “a cathedral,” right in the center of town. Day by day, as Marjorie’s skills as a stoneworker increase, so too does her intolerance for the bitter rules of her family life. Gradually, through exposure to the world beyond her parents’ wood cabin thanks to the kindness of her aunt and her boss, and an almost superhuman determination, she discovers what is loveable within herself. This newfound confidence and self-esteem ultimately allows her to break free from the bleak life she has known, to find love, to start a family, and to try to heal her old, deep wounds without passing that pain on to her husband and children.

An anthology of six one-act plays especially for women: FORGETTING FRANKIE: Karen attempts to get over her own heartbreak by investigating why a man asked three different women to marry him. COMMON CAUSE: Owen and Sandy banter and battle over whether or not they're meant for each other. AN EMPTY COFFEE SHOP: Sally hates Valentine's Day and takes refuge from the hearts and flowers in a coffee shop. PARADING WITH NELL: George visits her grandmother with some big new and finds grandma wearing a pot on her head. BAD BOATING: A girl and boy go on a date in a sailboat off Nantucket and the fog rolls in. INTENSIVE CARE: Mags, Bethany and Caroline's significant men are all in Intensive Care. Now, they need some intensive care. "Annie Evans' Forgetting Frankie.shows an ear keenly attuned to the terse, defensive style in which young urban professionals stake each other out in the mating game." - Stephen Holden, New York Times

In search of an identity, fourth-grader Shelby Bloom worries that she's no sports superstar, no whiz kid, no social butterfly, and no beauty queen. But she is funny-at least she thinks she is-so she decides she'll be the funny girl, the one who wins friends by keeping them in stitches. Soon she finds that while she really does have a comic flair, she also has a few things to learn about what makes people laugh, when the timing is right, and how things can go wrong for the jokester. See a video interview with the author and discover more titles in the series when you scan the book with the free Capstone 4D augmented reality app.

Fourteen-year-old Haylah dreams of being a stand-up star, but when her friends thrust her into the spotlight, she's not confident a plus-sized girl like her belongs onstage. Haylah Swinton is pretty confident she's mastered making light of every situation―from her mom's ugh boyfriend to classmates making unsolicited remarks on her figure. She logs all her best jokes in the hopes of one day busting out a fabulous set that will keep everybody laughing with her and not at her. After botching an open mic night, Haylah learns that her longtime crush, the impossibly cool Leo, is also into comedy. And when Leo provides her an opportunity to live vicariously by ghostwriting his sets for an upcoming festival, Haylah jumps at the chance. What a great way to get her material out there without totally bombing herself! But are Leo's intentions in Haylah's best interests? Despite warnings from her friends, Haylah's not ready to listen―and she might just be digging herself deeper toward heartbreak. If Haylah's ever going to take center stage, first she'll need to find the confidence to put herself out there and strut like the comedy queen she truly is. This contemporary YA rom-com stars a strong, memorable heroine and features a story full of heart, humor, and relatable themes of body image, dreams, and self-esteem.