Richard Ayoade

"The life of a book isn't easy, especially when people judge you by your cover (not every book can be adorned with sparkly unicorns!). And this narrator should know--it's the book itself, and it has a lot of opinions. It gets irritated when readers bend its pages back, and it finds authors quite annoying. But it does have a story to tell. Through witty direct address and charming illustrations, readers meet a book that has never been read, with a...

Joe Gardner is a middle-school band teacher who gets the chance of a lifetime to play at the best jazz club in town. A misstep takes him from New York City to The Great Before, a fantastical place where new souls get their personalities before going to Earth. Determined to return to his life, Joe teams up with a precocious soul, 22, who has never understood the appeal of the human life. As Joe tries to show 22 what's great about life, he may discover...

Set at the dawn of time, when prehistoric creatures and woolly mammoths roamed the earth, this tells the story of Dug, along with sidekick Hognob as they unite his tribe against a mighty enemy Lord Nooth and his Bronze Age City to save their home.

"There's trouble brewing in peaceful Glenview, Ohio. That's why four civic-minded citizens, armed with flashlights, walkie-talkies and spiffy new jackets, have teamed up to safeguard their community. But the guys find more than they bargained for when they uncover an alien plot to destroy Earth, and now these bumbling heroes are Glenview's only chance to save the neighborhood--and the world--from annihilation."--Container.

Both Jen and Roy are caught on camera behaving despicably. The incidents are posted on the Internet, turning Jen and Roy into global hate figures. Everything they do after only adds to their infamy. Doug and Moss attempt damage limitation, but it backfires.

There are reasons the IT Department of Reynholm Industries is kept in the building's basement. The department's employees are bitter slacker Roy, über-nerd Moss, and technically clueless Jen. Jen finds that her builder is urinating in all of her sinks; Moss has begun to speak like a manly football fan; Roy is now living on the streets; Reynholm will have a new Employee Of The Month; Friendface's horror needs to be stopped; charity calendars may...

“Roald Dahl sometimes shared a tonal kinship with Ogden Nash, and he could demonstrate a verbal inventiveness nearly Seussian…[His] stories work better in audio than in print.” –The New York Times
THE TWITS
How do you outwit a Twit?
Mr. and Mrs. Twit are the smelliest, nastiest, ugliest people in the world. They hate everything—except playing mean jokes on each other, catching innocent birds...

The Twits: The misadventures of two terrible old people who enjoy playing nasty tricks and are finally outwitted by a family of monkeys. The minpins: Little Billy enters the Forest of Sin and meets the Minpins, matchstick-sized people who live in tree cities besieged by the Smoke-Belching Gruncher whom Billy vows to destroy. The magic finger: Angered by a neighboring family's sport hunting, an eight-year-old girl turns her magic finger on them.

"Joe Gardner is a middle-school band teacher who gets the chance of a lifetime to play at the best jazz club in town. A misstep takes him from New York City to The Great Before, a fantastical place where new souls get their personalities before going to Earth. Determined to return to his life, Joe teams up with a precocious soul, 22, who has never understood the appeal of the human life. As Joe tries to show 22 what's great about life, he may discover...

A community of quirky, mischievous creatures known as the Boxtrolls lovingly raise an orphaned human boy named Eggs in the amazing cavernous home they've built beneath the streets of Cheesebridge. But when town villain Archibald Snatcher comes up with a plot to get rid of the Boxtrolls, Eggs ventures above ground where he meets and teams up with a fabulously feisty girl named Winnie who helps him devise a daring plan to save his family.