Tom O’Donnell Books in Order

Tom O’Donnell is a novelist, humor writer, and screenwriter whose books move easily between strange creatures, kids in over their heads, and worlds with rules that are funny until they become very serious. His work includes the middle grade series Space Rocks!, Hamstersaurus Rex, and Homerooms and Hall Passes, as well as the young adult horror novel Moonsick.

Before publishing his novels, O’Donnell was already writing comedy for outlets including The New Yorker and McSweeney’s, while also working in film and television. He has written for the Comedy Central show TripTank, and his comic strips have appeared in newspapers and alternative weeklies.

He clearly enjoys taking a familiar setup and tipping it sideways.

That approach is there from the start of Space Rocks!, published in 2014. Instead of treating humans as the obvious heroes of a space adventure, the story is told by Chorkle, a young alien whose home asteroid has been taken over by human mining operations. Four stranded human children become Chorkle’s unlikely allies, and the series makes room for video games, rocket bikes, odd alien animals, and a growing intergalactic conflict.

The four-book Hamstersaurus Rex series brings that same comic energy to middle school. Sam Gibbs is an awkward kid with a huge problem, his classroom hamster has mutated into a tiny, super-strong dinosaur-hamster with sharp teeth and a gigantic appetite. The stories pair school trouble, friendship, bullies, suspicious corporations, and plenty of snack-fueled destruction. Tim Miller’s illustrations add to the fast, messy fun.

With Homerooms and Hall Passes, O’Donnell flips a fantasy role-playing premise. The heroes begin as adventurers from the magical realm of Bríandalör, where they relax by playing a game about ordinary American students. Then a curse traps them inside that game, and the dungeon-crawling crew has to survive middle school, and later high school, without losing sight of the dangers following them from home.

In 2025, O’Donnell made his young adult debut with Moonsick. The book follows Heidi Mills, a high school senior living through a worldwide werewolf epidemic, after a break-in turns her carefully protected life upside down. It is a darker story than his middle grade books, but it still uses a sharp premise, quick pacing, and characters forced to deal with a situation that gets weirder by the hour.

Comedy runs through much of O’Donnell’s work, but the jokes usually sit beside real kid-sized worries. His characters want to fit in, protect a friend, get home, or simply make it through school without public disaster.

O’Donnell has been listed as living in Brooklyn, New York, with his family. Across his books and shorter work, he keeps returning to the useful idea that the ordinary world is only one bad decision, strange pet, or cursed game away from total chaos.