Laughing and having fun when reading with your kids is a great time for everyone involved. It’s great for family bonding, it’s great for promoting learning, it’s a load of fun – it’s the best of all possible worlds. We love turning reading time into laugh time – here are some of our absolute favorite laugh-out-loud reads.
17 Things I’m Not Allowed to Do Anymore (Jenny Offill and Nancy Carpenter)
Filled with wicked and funny scenarios, from stapling her brother’s hair to the pillow to freezing a dead fly in the ice cube tray, 17 Things is bound to get kindergarteners rolling on the floor laughing. The structure is very simple – a list of ideas and the inevitable consequences – leaving a lot of work for the artwork and children’s imaginations to explore exactly what went wrong. Just beware giving your kids too many ideas!
Interrupting Chicken (David Ezra Stein)
Are you the kind of person who cringes when characters make mistakes in movies or in stories? Do your children enjoy shouting out advice to characters in their favorite media? Then this is the book for them. Our hero chicken just can’t help but warn the heroes of various fairy tales – from Hansel and Gretel to Red Riding Hood – of their upcoming fates, stopping each story dead in their tracks. Absolutely hilarious!
The Book With No Pictures (B.J. Novak)
Yes, this book really has no pictures, which can be a turn-off to some children. But the game the book invites readers to play – to say everything the words say, “no matter what” – soon devolves into hilarious nonsense sounds and crazy ideas that create more imaginative concepts than illustrations ever could. This is a good one if you like doing crazy voices and other embellishments as you read.
I’m Bored (Michael Ian Black and Debbie Ridpath Ohi)
Nothing boring about this one! This turns the age-old children’s complaint on its head, with the protagonist potato (…roll with it) declaring that it is, in fact, kids who are boring. Cue attempt after attempt to convince him that kids are fun and exciting with fabulous pictures and beautiful artwork – to mixed results.
