I am currently reading 'The Abarat' and I highly recommend it! ...Its hard to expain the book without it sounding tacky..

Basically there is a young girl who finds herself in another world, and the world is filled with 'beings' that are not like humans, but are all very odd looking, and the whole place is odd!
She meets a bunch of great friends along the way and has an interesting adventure!

The book includes Illustrations by the writer, which are very abstract (like the characters!) but very interesting. :)