As a kid, it was the male authors that had me laughing out loud. And when I look through my current favourites, it still seems to be that it is predominately the male authors that make me laugh the most.
I used to devour Edward Lear’s Book of Nonsense. It was silly. It was improbable. And it rhymed. I can still chant my favourite poem:
I eat my peas with honey
I’ve done it all my life
It makes the peas taste funny
But it keeps them on my knife
From Lear, we can go to modern day picture book legend Mo Willems, whose Pigeon, Piggie and Elephant, and Knuffle Bunny books are delightfully funny to Tedd Arnold with his Fly Guy funnies and his Parts books with literal angst for kids and the idiosyncrasies of their bodies. And when it comes to funny poetry, I have to list my son’s favourite Australian poet Steven Herrick.
From these picture book funnies, my mind leaps to laughing with Roald Dahl who still amuses children with his quirky, twisted characters, to Andrew Daddo who ranges from gentle humour in his picture books to school boy antics in his chapter books (just using the jargon the kids throw at me). Andy “pulling a bandaid off story makes for the biggest laughs” Griffiths can get the most reluctant readers searching for his books as does Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. I enjoy reading out aloud Eoin Colfer, John Larkin, Philip Ardagh and Dave Hackett (of cartoon Dave fame – his books snuck up on me with their unexpected guffaws) for often, they will have my whole family laughing together.
My favourite male author/illustrators to this day are the wonderful bunch of idiots over at Mad Magazine. For Dave Berg, Duck Edwing, Spy vs Spy, Don Martin and Sergio Aragones amused me constantly. I also have to give a hats off to fabulous Terry Deary who, by using toilet humour, has given us history we can laugh at and want to search out for more and more books to read.
I love discovering funny men writing funny books for funny kids. And their comedic twists seem to cross all genre interest as humour proves to be the biggest draw card for all children from voracious readers to the reluctant readers.
Do you have any favourites?
Read It 2011 
November 7, 2011 at 3:32 pm
“You are old, Father William,” the young man said,
“And the hair on your head has turned white.
And yet you incessantly stand on your head,
Do you think at your age it is wise?”
“In my youth,” Father William replied with a smile,
“I though it might damage the brain.
But now I am perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again!”
I have no idea who wrote this but my father was constantly repeating it to us as kids when we thought he had done something especially silly 😀
November 7, 2011 at 5:24 pm
That is a Lewis Carroll poem from Alice in Wonderland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Are_Old,_Father_William. Perhaps your dad was trying to send you a message on age and silliness 🙂