Humor in nonfiction books for kids

6 thoughts on “Humor in nonfiction books for kids”

1. Thank you for includ­ing my series on this great list! I love when non­fic­tion incor­po­rates humor. A cou­ple more titles that come to mind are: Ground­hog Gets a Say and Diary of a Wom­bat (and the sequel Diary of a Baby Wombat.)
   My thought on why non­fic­tion isn’t always off the chain fun­ny is that to write a joke you have to take a leap from obser­va­tion to fun­ny. In the case of non­fic­tion, you then have to fact check that leap to make sure it’s fac­tu­al, and if it’s not, you have to rewrite the joke and fact check the new joke. In the end, your alle­giance is to accu­ra­cy. The humor is sec­ondary. Illus­tra­tions, on the oth­er hand, are often the voice of imag­i­na­tion sparked by fact. So they can be more whim­si­cal and fun­ny. That’s my super-seri­ous opin­ion, any­way. (I do some­times have a sense of humor, I swear!)

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   • Thanks, Brid­get! I’ve actu­al­ly been think­ing all of the “Diary of a…” books (except for Wimpy Kid) prob­a­bly belong on the list, too.
     Yes, I think you’re right on about illus­tra­tions hav­ing a bit more room for humor in non­fic­tion than the text. I also think if we writ­ers try to get fun­ny with the facts, read­ers start to won­der if we got too fun­ny with the facts, you know? ::winks::

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     • Geor­gia Brag­g’s books–“Caught” and “How They Croaked” have some VERY fun­ny lines.…though maybe old­er kids (as well as adult read­ers) “get” the ref­er­ences. I’ve been try­ing to see if there are oth­er online lists of best humor­ous non­fic­tion (pic­ture books, mid­dle grade, and old­er) or even writ­ing class­es for chil­dren’s writ­ers who want to explore this. So far…not too much. I do agree that the illus­tra­tions (like those in Kid Pres­i­dents by David Sta­bler) are also so fun­ny and are a stretch of the imag­i­na­tion that works.

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       • Thanks, Tru­di! If I were writ­ing this post today, I’d include all of Sarah Albee’s titles (I espe­cial­ly loved POISON). I also real­ly enjoyed the Secrets of the Ancient Gods series by Vicky Alvear Shecter (Anu­bis Speaks, Hades Speaks, Thor Speaks).

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2. My kids love lis­ten­ing to The Moth Radio Hour with me, all non­fic­tion sto­ries that usu­al­ly incor­po­rate humor. I always have to lis­ten to the sto­ries first by myself to check for con­tent and lan­guage, though. Do you know of any non­fic­tion books of short sto­ries like that geared toward children?

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   • Hi Jaymie,
     Thanks for your ques­tion! Yes, my Two Truths and a Lie series (co-authored with Ammi-Joan Paque­tte) sounds per­fect! Cryp­tid Crea­tures: A Field Guide by Kel­ly Mil­ner Halls also seems like it might hit the mark, as well as many of the books by Sarah Albee (Poop Hap­pened, Bugged, Poi­son, Dog Days of His­to­ry, Why’d They Wear That, and Acci­den­tal Arche­ol­o­gists. You could also try Heather L. Mont­gomery’s Some­thing Rot­ten and Who Gives a Poop. I’d love to hear if any of these work out!

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