7 Promising Books Like Captain Underpants

Hey there, young adventurers and laughter lovers! Are you ready to dive into worlds filled with humor, heroics, and the kind of fun that makes your belly ache from laughing so hard? If you’ve zipped through the zany adventures of Captain Underpants and are on the lookout for more giggles and gasps, then you’ve landed in the perfect spot!

We’re on a mission to uncover books that share the same spirit of adventure and comedy as our beloved, tighty-whitey-clad superhero. From mischievous plots to unlikely heroes, we’ve handpicked a selection of reads that promise to deliver thrills, spills, and chuckles aplenty. So, grab your cape (or your most heroic pair of underwear), and let’s leap into a world where laughter is just a page turn away!

7 Books Like Captain Underpants (Children’s Humor)

“Captain Underpants” encourages children to embrace their creativity and imagination. Similar books feature imaginative storylines and characters that empower young readers to think outside the box and accept their unique talents and abilities. Like “Captain Underpants,” similar books feature humor that resonates with children.

Whether it’s silly jokes, puns, or slapstick comedy, humor plays a significant role in engaging young readers and keeping them entertained throughout the story. Here are seven such books that feature colorful and engaging illustrations that complement the story, helping to bring the characters and plot to life in a visually appealing way. Let’s talk!

1. Ghosts

Ghosts is a middle-grade paranormal graphic novel. This one follows our main character, Catrina. Her sister has cystic fibrosis. So they moved to a new area because it’ll be easier for her sister to breathe with the climate there in California.

When they move to the area, there are a lot of rumors about ghosts around. It is heavily focused on Día de Los Muertos in the Latino culture. So, the book has huge discussions about ghosts, what happens in the afterlife, and how they communicate with the living and breathing. Catrina takes deep breaths to calm herself and her sister about breathing with her disease.

It shows that what an adult interprets and a child interprets are sometimes different. Like Captain Underpants, I appreciated the cultural diversity and learning about a different culture. If you were sensitive to talking about ghosts and believing in ghosts with your kids, that might be something you should check out before they read it.

Author: Raina Telgemeier
Publisher: Graphix (First Paperback Edition)
Tropes: Ghosts, Mystery, Friendship
Number Of Pages: 256
Grade level: 3 – 7
Available: Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle

2. Real Friends (Friends)

Real Friends is a children’s comic with realistic fiction that won the Goodreads Choice Award Nominee, Harvey Award Nominee, and AML Award. The story is about two best friends, Shannon and Adrienne. It started when Shannon was going to kindergarten, and it’s about her different friends throughout her childhood and how each of her friends has served a purpose throughout the years.

Some emotional abuse happens with her older sister, and the way she treats her is not very nice. The author talks about the importance of friendship, different friends, who’s a good friend and who’s not, and how some friends come and go. So this one was great, and I got a similar friendship vibe with Captain Underpants.

Author: Shannon Hale
Publisher: First Second (Illustrated edition)
Tropes: Memoir, Bully, Enemies-to-friends
Number Of Pages: 224
Reading age: 8 – 11 years
Available: Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle

3. Invisible Emmie (Emmie & Friends)

Invisible Emmie is another children’s realistic fiction graphic novel. It’s written in chapters, and the story is about a little girl, Emmie, who doesn’t quite fit in school. She’s quiet and doesn’t speak up much but enjoys drawing. Throughout the book’s pages is her story. Then you also get to meet Katie, the popular girl who wears the right clothes and has the right friends.

So everything works out for her, and she is told in this format. Then Emmy is said in the actual story, written in a diary format. It’s not dated or anything, but it’s told from the first-person point of view. Emmy writes a letter to a boy. The letter falls out of her backpack and is passed around the school. She starts getting made fun of for how she handles that situation and how she and Katie intersect. I enjoyed the loneliness-to-friendship transformation, which is similar to Captain Underpants. I recommend it to young adults.

Author: Terri Libenson
Publisher: Balzer + Bray (Illustrated Edition)
Tropes: Self-Esteem, Friendship, Family, Bullying
Number Of Pages: 192
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD

4. Sunny Side Up (Sunny)

Sunny Side Up is a historical fiction graphic novel. We follow our main character, Sunny, who goes to visit her grandpa over the summer. She was supposed to go to a lake and camping with her family. She gets sent to Florida to hang out with her grandfather in a retirement facility that is pretty much older and bored. There are only a few kids. Suny finally finds another kid who becomes her friend, and he is the son of the maintenance manager.

So there’s a lot in here about comics. They start reading comics together. It’s set in the seventies, but it’s good. The book’s premise is that she got sent to stay with her grandpa because her parents were trying to deal with her older brother getting into drugs. They send him away to a rehabilitation center, and they’re trying to deal with him.

So they send her to stay with Grandpa so that they can deal with that. But Sunny misses her older brother. Throughout the book, her grandfather allows her to open up and talk about it and expresses that it’s okay to miss him and that her parents are trying to do what’s best. But they need to figure out what to do all the time. I found this very powerful book, especially for kids with similar circumstances. After finishing the book author gives you some messages as Captain Underpants’s author. So, take it!

Author: Jennifer L. Holm
Illustrator: Matthew Holm
Publisher: Graphix (Illustrated edition)
Tropes: Fantasy, Historical, Psychological
Number Of Pages: 224
Available: Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle & Comixology

5. Swing it, Sunny (Sunny)

Swing it Sunny is the second book of the Sunny series. It is set in the year following that summer of Sunny Side Up and into the fall. That following year, Sunny’s brother is at a military academy. He’s very bitter with his whole family about being there. She misses him being a presence in their home.

So it’s her working through that and her brother, her coming to terms with how he’s acting out and how that’s not how he used to be. Their parents are trying to help him, but he does not appreciate what they do to help him. So this one was great and sent a positive message on handling those kinds of circumstances in those middle-grade years.

Author: Jennifer L. Holm
Illustrations: Matthew Holm
Publisher: Graphix (Illustrated edition)
Tropes: Coming-of-age, Arc, Family-friends
Number Of Pages: 224
Available: Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle

6. Roller Girl

Roller Girl is a middle-grade sports graphic novel that achieved a Newbery Medal Nominee. It’s a little longer for a middle-grade graphic novel but has a good story. We follow our main character, Astrid, whose mother takes her and her best friend to an evening of cultural enlightenment. So, this habit of taking her to all events around town exposed her to different ideas and cultures. So she takes her to a roller derby rink (game).

So she exposes her daughter to roller derby, and Astrid immediately falls in love with it and decides she wants to do it. She also tells her friend we’ll do roller derby camp for the summer. Her friend doesn’t want to do what her friend wants to do: dance camp. Astrid is very offended by the fact that her friend does not want to spend her summer at roller camp with her.

So it’s about her reconciling those feelings about her and her friend having different passions and not spending all their time together and her friend making other friends at her dance camp. She struggles with roller skating and derby in general. So she goes into the first day of camp and can barely stand up, let alone skate, and push people around.

Toward the end of the book, the author talks about being a team. Sometimes, you have to be the one to make a sacrifice to allow somebody else to shine. Be proud of your friends when they get something, even if you want it, and when they make those achievements. The friendship part of the book is very similar to Captain Underpants.

There’s a huge part where Astrid lies to her mom the whole summer. Then, when it all comes to light that that wasn’t the case, she gets in major trouble because she’s been coming home by herself and crossing highways she shouldn’t have been in. So when she gets in trouble, she has a complete meltdown. Her mom encourages her to open up and talk to her about what’s going on.

I loved the parental support and the encouraging the kids to go to their parents when they have a problem and to open up and talk to them. This is one that kids continue to read over and over because there are so many suitable life lessons and encouraging plot points. The illustrations and dialogues are excellent to visualize.

Author: Victoria Jamieson
Publisher: Dial Books
Tropes: Sports, Girl-power, Funny
Number Of Pages: 256
Book Weight: 1.21 pounds
Dimensions: 5.56 x 0.94 x 8.25 inches
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD

7. The Bad Guys

The Bad Guys is a fantasy middle-grade sequential art. It stars Mr. Wolf, Mr. Shark, Mr. Piranha, and Mr. Snake, and the story’s premise is that Mr. Wolf is the wolf from the fairy tales. He wants to turn over a new leaf, and it’s entirely comedic/childish humor. He ropes the other three into helping him. They don’t know why he invited them over. Much of it’s talking to the audience like we’re part of it while reading.

There’s a rap sheet for each character, and they’re dressed as mobsters with ties and suits. Their first mission is to free dogs from the pound. So, it’s ironic because the bad guys are trying to be good, but they’re doing it in methods that a bad guy would choose, and the other three are reluctant to help. I found the piranha funny because he has a Latino accent. Similar to Captain Underpants, they’re all funny in their way. Check out this series if you have a sense of humor and you want to hand your sense of humor down to your children.

Author: Aaron Blabey
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
Tropes: Adventure, Fantasy, Animals
Number Of Pages: 192
Available: Paperback | Kindle

Here are more similar suggestions:

Dog Man by Dav Pilkey: Another series by the same author as Captain Underpants, featuring a crime-fighting dog with the head of a human and a canine’s body.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney: This series is told in a journal-style format and follows the misadventures of middle school student Greg Heffley.

The Adventures of Ook and Gluk by Dav Pilkey: A graphic novel series follows two cavemen who time-travel to the future and learn kung-fu to save their prehistoric village.

My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish by Mo O’Hara: A boy accidentally turns his goldfish into a zombie.

We hope this journey through the pages of books like Captain Underpants has filled your imagination with wild adventures and your heart with unstoppable laughter. Each story we’ve shared is a gateway to new escapades, where humor and heroism collide in the most unexpected and delightful ways.

The power of laughter is just a book away, and there’s always another adventure waiting to tickle your funny bones and challenge your inner superhero. So, keep your capes at the ready and your spirits high because the world of hilarious heroes is vast and endlessly entertaining. Until our next laugh-out-loud literary escapade, happy reading, and may your adventures be as boundless and joyous as your imagination!

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