Aru Shah and the End of Time is an epic adventure featuring famous figures from Hindu mythology, but it’s also a fun, witty read. The story follows Aru, a young girl who lives in the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture. It is a rollercoaster ride through history and legend, with Aru and her friends encountering gods, monsters, and a talking pigeon named Boo. Chokshi creates funny and courageous characters that all readers will root for.

The third installment in Claribel A. Ortega’s acclaimed Witchlings series, House of Elephants, picks up after the thrilling climax of The Golden Frog Games, which saw one of the titular Witchlings placed under a terrifying curse. Despite the increasing stakes in Ortega’s magical world, where malevolent forces are rising to demonise Spare witches, House of Elephants keeps the sparky, funny interactions between its main characters that make the Witchlings books such great reads.

When young Kyana Turner discovers that she’s a witch, she starts spending her Saturdays at Park Row Magick Academy, a local magic school run out of a nearby salon. Kyana discovers an aptitude for Potions, which gels perfectly with her knack for baking. When the school is threatened because of a lack of funding, she decides to enter a baking competition to win the money needed to keep the school open. With intricate worldbuilding and a fantastic magic system, A Taste of Magic also has plenty of hilarious hijinks when Kyana’s magic behaves in unexpected ways.

At first glance, Inkbound might seem like a dark fantasy middle grade series. Set in a world where ten-year-old children receive magical tattoos that show their fates, it follows Metty Jones, whose skull tattoo tells the world that she’s destined to be a murderer. However, despite mayhem, magic, kidnappings, and the rise of a sinister group known as the Black Moths, Inkbound still brings plenty of laughs as Metty awkwardly tries to make her way through an unpredictable world.

Angie Thomas’s magical middle grade series is as funny as it is fantastical. Nic Blake is a young girl raised by her magician father, hiding their powers from the ordinary humans in their town. But although she knows magic is real, she never suspected that her favourite book series was based on her father’s childhood adventures with his best friend. When Nic discovers the truth, she also finds out that the dangers her father faced haven’t gone away, and she has to take them on with her own friends. As Nic explores the Manifestor world, plenty of laughs ensue, along with thrills and chills.

Patrice Lawrence’s Elemental Detectives series may deal with serious themes, such as the plight of child workers and colonialism in a fantasy version of Victorian London, but it also includes plenty of humour. In this second installment, Marisee and Robert set out to find out why London’s music has disappeared, setting out into the worlds of the Elementals to solve the mystery. The Elementals and their strange outlooks on the world always strike a funny chord, whether it’s the ditsy nature of the air-spirit Fumis, or the constantly-changing society of the water elemental Chads.

Another fantastic magical school story, School for Fireflies follows Siddy and Zadie, two new students who are swept up in learning spellcrafting and other skills—until they’re sidetracked by solving a mystery. With plenty of wit and warmth, School for Fireflies is a funny read as well as an action-packed adventure.

Fans of Welsh mythology will love Vivi Conway and the Sword of Legend, the tale of a group of children who have the souls of witches from the past and stand against the terrifying King Arawn of the Otherworld. Alongside the high fantasy, there’s a lot of humour: Vivi discovers that Excalibur is tiny, that talking ghost dogs exist, and that having water-based magic powers is trickier than she’d thought.