In many ways, his new book is a return to form. The ingredients are familiar: a naïve and earnest eleven-year-old burdened with problems and possibly facing death; a quest that takes him to the other side of the world; a loser sidekick who proves his worth; and loving parents misguidedly trying to protect their son from the harsh realities of life. Yes, it sounds very much like Two Weeks with the Queen, but in Doubting Thomas (Puffin, $16.95 pb, 178 pp, 0143302612), Thomas Gulliver’s big worry is itchy nipples. From the outset we are firmly in nudge-nudge territory, nipples being so much more giggle-inducing than, say, an itchy palm or scalp. But why do Thomas’s nipples itch?

At first he is terrified that he is growing bosoms and turning into a girl: ‘you could never be sure when it came to medical problems involving puberty.’ He seeks advice from the family doctor, who diagnoses stress, and from a waxing expert at his mother’s beauty salon, who prescribes a good moisturiser. Eventually, the truth dawns on him: he has inbuilt lie detectors. People lie to Thomas, or Thomas lies to himself, and immediately his nipples start itching. When they alert him to the fact that both his parents are lying to him, Thomas is plunged into a moral dilemma. Mum promotes and sells natural and organic products in her salon, but in order to save money actually uses cheap brands full of chemicals. The business is on the skids and she has been keeping the bad news from Dad, who has his own little deception: he has lost his job but still goes off in the mornings as if still fully employed.

Thomas’s big sister Alisha tells him not to be such a worry-wart: everybody lies – it’s ‘how the world is’. If we are talking about white lies, or the compromises that smooth the path of human relationships, Alisha is right. The trouble here is that no distinction, moral or physical, is drawn between the harmless variety and the lies told by dodgy marketers and politicians: both kinds trigger an identical itch and an identical worry.

Not the least of Gleitzman’s challenges is how to describe cause and effect with the minimum of repetition. Thomas’s nipples ‘go ballistic’; they explode, they spasm, they ‘go garlic prawn’, they ‘go fluffy ant’, they go ‘feather duster’. Gleitzman’s challenge is to make us care about the protagonist and his problem; an even bigger challenge is to use all this humorous nonsense to deliver a meaningful message. I am not sure Gleitzman completely succeeds. Itchy nipples seem to me a small price to pay in exchange for the ability to know when someone is lying, and I don’t think I would be racing around the world looking for a cure.

In response to readers like me, Gleitzman ups the ante by making the condition potentially fatal – something about the build-up of toxins from all those lies. This is, I think, where the problems start. Thomas discovers the existence of ‘doubters’, children who throughout history have suffered from a similar affliction. Thomas learns that he may only have another year to live unless he can contact the only known survivor, a sixty-year-old Parisian called Vera Poulet, and learn her secret. He goes on a television quiz show Liar Liar – one that he is particularly equipped to win – and scores a family holiday to France. He contrives to take his two best friends, Holly and Kevin, but once there the French are unhelpful and rude, the food is disgusting, and they have problems finding Vera because they think her place of employment – a catacomb – is a pet grooming salon. When they do find her, the cure, of course, is predictable: everyone close to Thomas must stop lying. Under the Eiffel Tower, the family members confess their secrets. ‘You’ve taught us a really important lesson, Thomas,’ Mum says. ‘People in families should tell each other the truth.’ There is no word about what happens to Thomas’s nipples when the next politician lies on television, but I guess small domestic reforms are a start.

I had some problems with Doubting Thomas, not least because of the title. Thomas is the New Testament figure who refuses to believe that Jesus has come back from the dead until he touches the wounds and sees the blood; the parable, as illustrated in Caravaggio’s famous painting, is all about the nature of belief and the relation to seeing and touching – quite a stretch from itchy body parts caused by lies. But Gleitzman knows how to tell and structure a narrative, and in the best of his stories there is always an underlying humanity and sympathy for bumbling parents trying to do their best.

My appreciation of his skills zoomed after I read Neville Barnard’s attempt at a humorous novel about a serious subject, Superglued (Lothian, $14.95 pb, 144 pp, 0734409303). The cover biography cheerfully confesses that Barnard ‘doesn’t know much about a lot of things’, and he certainly never seems to have heard of the Creative Writing maxim, ‘Show, don’t tell’. Superglued is nothing but telling. You can read pages and pages without being entertained by a single line of dialogue; the all-important first chapter contains none. Sometimes the author shows and tells: ‘A silent tear slid slowly down his cheek. He felt he was drowning in sadness.’ Sometimes he tells you twice: ‘He had gone to board at St Gregory’s. St Gregory’s was a boarding school …’ And he commits an error that Gleitzman would never do, even in his sleep: he throws away an opening scene of potential humour, drama and conflict.

In the aftermath of a recent separation, Robert Stoner fantasises about bringing his parents together again, the symbolic representation of this being the shattered bride and groom dolls from their wedding cake, which he laboriously tries to mend, convinced that if he can his parents will also reunite. He is kneeling in the school toilet engaged in this task when he is sprung by a classmate who can’t wait to spread the story that ‘Stoner plays with dolls in the dunny’. It is a scene that calls out for dramatisation, but how does the novel begin? With Robert applying superglue to the zip of his betrayer’s sports bag. We are then told, in three pages of summary, what has prompted this act of retaliation. We don’t, therefore, get much of a chance to empathise with Robert before he and his superglue are off on a malicious course of petty spite against his mother’s nice new boyfriend. It is all meant to be funny, and Barnard obviously intends us to see his protagonist as a confused and angry child. Instead, he comes across as a smirking brat. In the final chapter, Robert fakes his own kidnapping: I for one wouldn’t have paid the ransom. Barnard might have done better to have foregone the lame attempts at humour (‘There was so much timber it was as if the room had been declared plastic-free’), stripped his prose of exclamation marks (‘Robert’s mum was having a great time!’), and written a straight account of a boy trying desperately to cope with the pain of divorce.

Nicki Greenberg’s Antonia Cutlass Walks the Plank (Pan, $12.95 pb, 145 pp, 0330422693) also features a protagonist embarking on mischief intended to cause an adult extreme embarrassment, but there is no malice involved and Antonia, who relates the narrative, knows how to dramatise a story. She should: her mother runs the Clams and Cutlasses, ‘the worst theatre restaurant in Australia’, and Antonia herself is something of a diva. But she is deeply embarrassed by the low standards of the restaurant, the corny pirate show and the devious way in which her mother has managed to get a three-chicken rating from Eat! City. When the restaurant is chosen as the venue for the end-of-year PTA dinner, Antonia, with the help of a rubber octopus and a handful of smelly prawns, plots to get it closed down before she can be shamed in front of her teachers and classmates. Of course, things go disastrously wrong. The story rattles along at a great pace, and Greenberg’s manic illustrations are a bonus. I particularly liked ‘How to clean a squid’.

These novels are all targeted at older primary school readers. Writing a strong, appealing, genuinely funny story for a younger readership seems to be a hard proposition, judging by a stack of recent titles. Broadly, they fall into two categories: gentle humour (but sometimes ‘wishy-washy’ would be more accurate) and zany humour, often featuring fantastical elements. The best of the latter was Pirates Eat Porridge, by Christopher Morgan, illustrated by Neil Curtis (Allen & Unwin, $12.95 pb, 76 pp, 1741148766). We can probably blame Johnny Depp for all these pirates, and the one who turns up at Bill and Heidi’s tree house equipped with a treasure map and a Pythonesque pig perched on his shoulder (‘He’s not a pig. He’s a parrot’) has a lot of appeal. So it’s up with the mainsail and off they all go to Itchy Ear Island (no itchy nipples here). The children learn how to spit, skate and disco dance, all valuable lessons in becoming a pirate. They outwit the Ponder Crabs and finally reach the Spot, where they hope the treasure is buried. The conclusion carries a subtle message about the pleasure of the journey over the delights of destination, but the true delight of this book is the successful integration of text and illustration. Neil Curtis, who illustrated the award-winning picture book Cat and Fish (2003), is a living treasure.

Talking dogs should come into the same zany category as pigs who think they are parrots, but The Sausage Situation (Scholastic, $9 pb, 80 pp, 1865047880), the latest in the Jack Russell: Dog Detective series by Darrel and Sally Odgers, features a cast of canine characters who might just as well be humans – which of course is the basis for the humour. Jack lives with Sarge in Doggeroo, and while his master solves human crimes, Jack is the Sherlock Holmes of the canine world. There is a vast range of characters and a not uncomplicated plot involving stolen sausages for young readers to deal with, but the task is made easier by lots of side boxes and cute illustrations, including ‘nose maps’ detailing the workings of Jack’s mind, and a doggy glossary (for example, ‘Dached: the way dachshunds get about’). There are lots and lots of puns, and most are pawfectly terrible – sorry, terrierble – but young readers newly exploring the delights of language will love them.

Ben the Post-Mouse by Emily Rodda (Working Title, $9.99 pb, 58 pp, 1876288574) is part of the Squeak Street series. The charcoal pencil and soft watercolour-wash illustrations by Andrew McLean perfectly complement an amusing story about the perils of getting what you wish for. The eponymous hero is sad because he delivers letters but receives none himself. He places an advertisement for pen pals in the local paper, rashly promising to answer every correspondent immediately, and is flooded with replies. He can’t believe how boring most of them are; he is up every night writing replies and tramping the streets every day delivering them. Luckily, he is rescued from exhaustion and depression in the nick of time by loyal friends. To write an amusing, imaginative story with fully realised characters in so few words is a real skill, and Emily Rodda is a champion. This is also a beautifully produced book, with high quality paper, large clear type and a sturdy matt-finish cover featuring an appealing spot-varnish vignette of the overwhelmed little rodent scribe.

Superior production values also characterise Mokie and Bik (Allen & Unwin, $14.95 pb, 90 pp, 1741145503), a quirky little story by Wendy Orr about twins growing up on a houseboat, based on her own family history. Mokie and Bik have various cute adventures and speak a private language, but I am afraid I found it a bit twee. You can take just so much of ‘icky-sticky-fisky bits’ and ‘sniff-whiffing’. The illustrations by Beth Norling and the overall design of the book are tremendously appealing, and I can see the read-aloud potential, but I suspect the book will resonate most strongly with the author’s own family.