The first Black Wolves book absolutely hit my funny-bone.  Perhaps it was because I also have very dissimilar siblings and cousins who all interacted in their own peculiar ways...  perhaps because I also had some martial arts training in my teens... perhaps because every single member of my family owns and loves animals with their OWN peculiar ways (though no real wolves have been involved.)

I suspect I also love the book because in a small way I resemble the main character.  Like Joshua, I too am a trouble or weirdness magnet, so I can visualize some of the story's events as though I were present.  (I know of no one besides me who has been picked up by a giraffe at a Seattle zoo, had their foot stepped on by an elephant during a Wisconsin parade, been bitten by an ocelot at a Pennsylvania kennel, and been bucked off a horse in Montana and then landed on a rattlesnake.  My Oddness-list is longer, but that's all I'm going to admit in front of strangers.)

Many of Joshua's peculiar experiences were considerably darker than mine; even so my ribs hurt from laughing at the lighter ones.   You just gotta read the book!