Best-selling children's author Phyllis Reynolds Naylor has been fuelling the war between the sexes for a while now, with her series about these feuding neighbours.

But it is more than just a family feud - it is also the battle between the sexes, as the Hatford brothers wage war against their sworn enemies, the Malloy girls.

These books are bestsellers around the world, with boys and girls being able to enjoy the ongoing dastardly tricks and pranks played by both families.

Naylor began with The Boys Start the War - which they did.

In this first book in the series, the Hatford boys do not want a family of girls moving next door, and decide to start dumping revolting things in the stream between the two properties, hoping this will gross out the females.

The girls, however, are smarter than this, and in retaliation dump their supposedly dead sister in the stream in front of the appalled boys.

And the war begins.

Of course, since the boys started the war, the girls should rightly get even, and that's exactly what happens in the second book The Girls Get Even.

Each of the books in the series covers a month in the lives of the battling neighbours, and as is the case with all good series, whenever it looks like the boys and girls may be going to kiss and make up, some dastardly deed is plotted and executed to prolong the conflict.

Now you may think that the idea would be getting a bit tired by the fifth or sixth book in the series, but the wonderfully awful pranks that Naylor keeps inventing are so hilarious, that you can't help reading on with horrified fascination.

And of course, quite often the pranksters are discovered and punished, or their plans backfire in unexpected ways, so there is a sense of justice in the books as well, which will relieve many parents.

The latest offering in the series is called The Girls Take Over, with a contest being waged between the boys and girls to win slaves for a day.

Now when the stakes are so high, and the possibilities so revolting, fair play goes out the window, and both the Hatford boys and the Malloy girls resort to any underhanded trick they can think of to win the contest.

This series has broad appeal, with the children in the books ranging from seven years up to teens.

The comedy and pranks are inventive and guaranteed to have boys in particular sniggering along.

Try them on reluctant readers, or children who are looking for a good rib-tickling read.

For continuity, it is best to start with The Boys Start the War, and work up to the latest in the series.