An interview with guest author Nancy Kelly Allen on writing humor for kids...

The Funny Business of Writing Humor for Kids by Nancy Kelly Allen

Kids love stories that make them laugh. Editors and parents love stories that make kids laugh. Humor is that delightful element that makes a story funny, but writing humor is serious business.

To create humorous stories for children, writers must consider the age-appropriate stages of humor in the development of children. A story that makes a four-year-old laugh may not be funny to a second grader. Humor is subjective and personal, and although everyone has an opinion of what is funny, the type of humor that connects with a child changes as the child grows older.

Babies, six months and older, laugh at silly actions, faces, and sounds. As writers, when we translate this to books, we can make human characters walk like a monkey, hang socks from ears to look like a dog, or moo like a cow to create a humorous book. Notice how parents interact with babies to get them to laugh. If the activity works for babies in real life, it will probably work for them in a book. The human character is doing something unexpected so it’s funny.

Parts II and III of this article will follow.