From: Monica R. Edinger <edinger>
Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 06:02:59 -0400

I first came across Harris and Me when I heard a selection read aloud by Karen Smith (of Queens College) at a NCTE session on books of the year (or some sort of list like that; can't remember). I had not been much of a Gary Paulsen fan, thinking of him pretty much as Mr. Survivor Man. Harris and Me was totally different. Karen read aloud one of the scenes when Harris got in trouble and the whole audience was in stitches. I bought the book immediately and have read it aloud successfully to many 4th grade classes. I feel like I'm a stage when I read it, the timing is so perfect!
(Like many I'm a frustrated actor.) However, I haven't read it to all classes. Some groups clearly would not have liked it so I don't read it to them.

I have not given it to 4th graders to read on their own. I could see an occasional 4th grader enjoying it (I can think of a few from last year's class, but none from this year's) and agree with fairrosa that on its own it is more suitable for older kids.

One thing that strikes me is that I'm best able to judge children's response to humor by reading aloud. First I have to find a book that I find really funny and then I have to decide if the group will find it funny. If so, I read it aloud. I guess it is like being a standup comic. You need audience response to know if you are winning them over or bombing.

I love deadpan humor. Thus, Arlene Sardine. Here's something about that book that I thought would never appeal to 4th graders. My class LOVES it.
 The day after I read it aloud they asked that I read it again and they recited it along with me. (Part of this has to do with them getting progressively more and more bored with Harriet Spies again which I started reading aloud and which we are comparing to Harriet the Spy as we live in her world. The new book is so far off the original that they are getting fed-up and several have asked me to drop it. I will take a vote today and hopefully the majority will go for the hook.)

I'm going out on a limb here, but I think some humor is learned. That is, my kids admire me a great deal and if I think Arlene Sardine is funny they are going to try to find it funny too. They may not, but they sure are going to try.

Some humor is built around the unknown. Harris and Me is partly the narrator's horror at farm life. It isn't as if Harris and Louis and the rest are especially unusual, it is that the narrator is a complete novice as to farm living.

Other humor is built around the familiar. Arlene Sardine starts like book after book my kids have seen and then goes into a twist.

Some have been posting of bits in books they found funny such as Clearly's description of Ramona mangling the national anthem. I think that is an interesting example. I don't generally find this kind of misunderstanding of language funny. (Please, those who do, don't be offend it here!) English is a second language in my family and it still is misused by the older generation on a regular basis; I 'm constantly having to try to understand what they mean without offending them. Also, the language thing can get a bit close to ethnic humor (which makes me very uncomfortable) for my taste. When it is a family thing, I'm better. For example,in Ralph Fletcher's Fig Pudding, the littlest brother keeps talking incomprehensibly about something that turns out to be a "little ladder." That plays on language development in home that is different than outside the home (as happens in the national anthem).

Monica

Monica Edinger The Dalton School New York NY edinger at dalton.org monicaedinger at yahoo.com
Received on Wed 08 May 2002 05:02:59 AM CDT