From: Peggy Rader <rader004>
Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 12:46:43 -0500

I also loved Arlene Sardine as did my (then 13-year-old) son who, when he got to the middle of the book where Arlene dies, looked up at me, clearly struggling not to laugh. I said, "It's supposed to be funny." He laughed all the way to the end, then announced, "That's sick. I love it."

He also went through a long-lived Pinkwater phase (the novels, not the picture books) and still has them on his bookshelf. The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death was a special favorite (mine, too). When he was in grade school we really loved Louis Sachar's Marvin Redpost series. We'd fall off the couch reading those out loud.

It seems to me, as a parent and former classroom volunteer whose job was to read aloud for half-an-hour once a week, that kids (and many adults) most often find funny those words or behaviors or ideas that are frowned upon or even forbidden in polite, obedient company--body functions and excretions, naughty behavior that is somehow rewarded--intentionally or not, subversive language, intentional misdirection. My son's response to Arlene Sardine illustrates that: Ooh, this is funny--but it shouldn't be funny, it's about death--but a dead little fishy in a kid's book--it's funny--is it okay to laugh? It can allow a kid to safely explore the idea of naughtiness or even something potentially very sad. But now I'm becoming way too serious about what's funny. Vive Arlene!

Peggy J. Rader Publications and Media Relations Coordinator College of Education and Human Development University of Minnesota rader004 at umn.edu www.education.umn.edu 612b6?82
Received on Fri 03 May 2002 12:46:43 PM CDT