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RE: Keep Them Laughing
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From: Reid, Robert A. <REIDRA_at_uwec.edu>
Date: Fri, 07 Jun 2013 15:06:27 +0000
I've possibly mentioned this before in a previous CCBC listserv discussion, but we hold a Comedy Club in my University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Literat ure for Adolescents course. Students have to find a passage from a young ad ult book that "middle school or high school kids will find funny." The cave at is that the material must be 'clean" enough to read in a public place, s uch as a library. The assignment emphasizes that it's not overly easy to fi nd humor in young adult books. We read the passages to each other in class. The students learn that many books that aren't necessarily labeled "humor" or under "comedy," have funny passages. I read them the scene from Chris C rutcher's Stotan, where the coke bottle treatment is used to pop a pimple ( a similar scene is from Crutcher's autobiography King of the Mild Frontier) . I read them a series of diary entries from Angus Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging where Georgia trims her eyebrows. I read them Jon Scieszka's puke station wagon scene from the first Guys Read book (that, too, is repeated i n his autobiography Knucklehead). Finally, I share a passage from David LaR ochelle's Absolutely Positively Not where Steven takes yet another driving test and his old first-grade teacher is the driving tester. She fails him.
Some the titles this past semester's students found came from (in no partic ular order): Sarah Simpson's Rules for Living by Rupp, Zen and the Art of F aking It by Sonnenblick, All American Girl by Cabot, Be More Chill by Vizzi ni, Flipped by Van Draanan, Beauty Queens by Bray, Prom by Anderson, and Da sh & Lily's Book of Dares by Cohn and Levithan.
Rob Reid University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
From: Megan Schliesman
Sent: Thursday, June 06, 2013 9:52 AM To: ccbc-net, Subscribers of Subject:
Keep Them Laughing
It's time to start our discussion for the first part of June:
Keep Them Laughing: More on Humor. Chris Monroe's new picture book Cookie t he Walker (Carolrhoda, 2013) has us thinking more about what's funny, a dis cussion we began in February when we talked about humor in multicultural li terature. From an outrageous premise spun into delight to authors and illu strators adept at finding humor in situations both likely and unlikely, hum or can be broad in appeal and yet so specific when it comes to individual t aste.
One of the things we always love seeing here at the CCBC are funny y.a. boo ks. So much y.a. lit is not funny (and isn't trying to be), so books that c an capture dimensions of the adolescent experience with tongue in cheek, or both humor and heart, stand out from the crowd. One example from last yea r that we greatly appreciated is "Me, Earl and the Dying Girl" by Jesse And rews (Amulet / Abrams, 2012). This year, a stand-out for me so far is "Open ly Straight" by Bill Konigsberg (Arthur A. Levine Book / Scholastic, 2013).
Megan
Date: Fri, 07 Jun 2013 15:06:27 +0000
I've possibly mentioned this before in a previous CCBC listserv discussion, but we hold a Comedy Club in my University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Literat ure for Adolescents course. Students have to find a passage from a young ad ult book that "middle school or high school kids will find funny." The cave at is that the material must be 'clean" enough to read in a public place, s uch as a library. The assignment emphasizes that it's not overly easy to fi nd humor in young adult books. We read the passages to each other in class. The students learn that many books that aren't necessarily labeled "humor" or under "comedy," have funny passages. I read them the scene from Chris C rutcher's Stotan, where the coke bottle treatment is used to pop a pimple ( a similar scene is from Crutcher's autobiography King of the Mild Frontier) . I read them a series of diary entries from Angus Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging where Georgia trims her eyebrows. I read them Jon Scieszka's puke station wagon scene from the first Guys Read book (that, too, is repeated i n his autobiography Knucklehead). Finally, I share a passage from David LaR ochelle's Absolutely Positively Not where Steven takes yet another driving test and his old first-grade teacher is the driving tester. She fails him.
Some the titles this past semester's students found came from (in no partic ular order): Sarah Simpson's Rules for Living by Rupp, Zen and the Art of F aking It by Sonnenblick, All American Girl by Cabot, Be More Chill by Vizzi ni, Flipped by Van Draanan, Beauty Queens by Bray, Prom by Anderson, and Da sh & Lily's Book of Dares by Cohn and Levithan.
Rob Reid University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
From: Megan Schliesman
Sent: Thursday, June 06, 2013 9:52 AM To: ccbc-net, Subscribers of Subject:
Keep Them Laughing
It's time to start our discussion for the first part of June:
Keep Them Laughing: More on Humor. Chris Monroe's new picture book Cookie t he Walker (Carolrhoda, 2013) has us thinking more about what's funny, a dis cussion we began in February when we talked about humor in multicultural li terature. From an outrageous premise spun into delight to authors and illu strators adept at finding humor in situations both likely and unlikely, hum or can be broad in appeal and yet so specific when it comes to individual t aste.
One of the things we always love seeing here at the CCBC are funny y.a. boo ks. So much y.a. lit is not funny (and isn't trying to be), so books that c an capture dimensions of the adolescent experience with tongue in cheek, or both humor and heart, stand out from the crowd. One example from last yea r that we greatly appreciated is "Me, Earl and the Dying Girl" by Jesse And rews (Amulet / Abrams, 2012). This year, a stand-out for me so far is "Open ly Straight" by Bill Konigsberg (Arthur A. Levine Book / Scholastic, 2013).
Megan
-- Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison 600 N. Park Street, Room 4290 Madison, WI 53706 608/262-9503 schliesman_at_education.wisc.edu www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/ ---Received on Fri 07 Jun 2013 03:06:27 PM CDT
