This is the shelf you reach for when you've tried everything and your child still won't read. These are the sure things — the ones librarians and teachers hand over when nothing else has stuck. Every book here has converted more foot-dragging, screen-glued, book-allergic children than anything else in print. Any single one is a real bet, not a warm-up. Pick by your child's age and the kind of funny they laugh at, hand it over, and there's a very good chance you'll look up and find them still turning pages.
These are the closest thing children's publishing has to a guarantee. Every one is heavily illustrated or fully graphic, funny on the first page, and part of a long series — so a child who takes to one has a dozen more waiting, and you've bought yourself a year of bedtimes. You pick the one that fits the child in front of you. Dog Man is the broadest, most instant win — a comic, all pictures, funniest for the youngest. Captain Underpants and The Bad Guys are the same silly, gross-out register a notch up. Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Big Nate are for the older child who wants school comedy and cartoons on every page. The Last Kids on Earth is the one for the child who wants monsters and action with their jokes. InvestiGators is wall-to-wall puns for the pun-lover. Hand over the one that sounds most like your child and let them binge.