The Random House Book of Humor for Children

by Pam Pollack (Editor), Paul O. Zelinsky (Illustrator)

With illustrations by Caldecott award winner Paul O. Zelinsky, the anthology will have readers rolling in the aisles over 34 laugh-out stories by Judy Blume, Richard Peck, Beverly Cleary, E. Nesbit, Natalie Babbitt, Mark Twain, Roald Dahl, and many more!

Genres: Humor, Childrens, Short Stories, Juvenile, Fiction

320 pages, Hardcover

First published November 29, 1988

About the author

Pamela Pollack is a writer/editor/compiler of children's and young adult books.

Reviews

[Violet W.]

There are a few of these I'd recommend skipping, but alltogether they're pretty good!

[Starry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slight downgrade. I wrote my below review after reading the stories that weren't immediately familiar and skipping the ones from books I knew well. Now, after reading the entire anthology, I'm changing from 5 stars to 4 stars, because some of the selections are enough out of context that the humor is missing or not fully explained. Still, it's a great jumping-off point for finding a wide selection of funny stories.


What am amazing selection of humorous short stories!

I expected the modern children's book authors well known for their humor: Beverly Cleary's Ramona, Judy Blume's Fudge, Betty MacDonald's Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Sid Fleischman's McBroom. I loved that older selections were also included: E. Nesbit is a timeless favorite ; T.H. White's Sword in the Stone was a great choice.

I didn't expect the inclusions by well-known writers not considered children's writers: Garrison Keillor, Mark Twain. Among the best inclusions of this sort were two well-known short stories: Shirley Jackson's fabulous "Life Among the Savages" (I read this years ago, and it made such an impression that I had already told my kids the story before coming across it here) and Saki's hilarious "The Lumber-Room", which is cleverness itself. It's great to come across these stories, because I had just been bemoaning how depressing the modern short story is: humor is rare unless it's gallows humor.

This book is a delight to read. It's also a delight to read aloud to your kids. For them, the stories can be a great jumping-off point to find good books, since they can read more by the authors whose stories and characters they enjoyed.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this with my 9yo at the bus stop this year. It's an amazing compilation of chapters and stories from some of the funniest and best quality kid's books ever. It introduced Danny to many authors I already knew like E. Nesbit, Betty MacDonald, Beverly Cleary, Robert MacCloskey, Edward Eager, Roald Dahl, Mark Twain, James Thurber, T.H. White, and Rudyard Kipling. It's a great book for a child to get a taste of some fabulous authors and seeing which ones you want to read more of.

I loved that in the back of the book there was a list of the books the excerpts came from so when something tickles you, you can find the book. I also met some new authors: Saki, and Shirley Jackson. I'm currently reading the complete works of Saki. Way above Danny's head, but he has short stories with the satire of Thurber and the surprise endings of O. Henry.

If your child has a funny bone and loves to read, this book is amazing. Would be a great gift book.

[Scott]

This is a terrible book and a complete waste of time to read. Of all the stories included only two, an excerpt from The Phantom Tollbooth and one about a phone call are worth reading. To call this a humorous book for children is a misrepresentation of the truth. We purchased this book in 1992 when our children were very young. I should have thrown it out years ago.

[B · Rating 4 out of 5]

J Excerpts from well know authors such as Roald Dahl, Judy Blume, etc. plus short stories from humorists such as Mark Twain. For all elem and middle school ages.

[Catherine Mustread · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prose selections (34), mostly excerpts and some short stories.