One goal of writing is to provoke a response in readers. Humor writing provokes a physical response in the reader, making the reader smile or laugh. Humor also allows a writer to examine "dangerous" ideas in a nonthreatening way, allowing young readers a chance to begin exploring "issues" without being depressing or bleak. Humor writers often complain that they frequently passed over by critiques of "great literature." And yet, they endure - drawing in devoted fans from each new generation. And they sell. Bestseller lists are filled with books that make young people laugh, such as Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, The Wayside School series, and No More Dead Dogs.

SILLY GIGGLES

Author Rick Walton says writing humor for small children means knowing the intellectual maturity and life experience likely to be found in children of the age you're targeting. "Children have different knowledge and experience than adults and their knowledge and experience are rapidly changing. Preschoolers will not understand jokes about Kindergarten. Two-year-olds will not get bathroom jokes. Kids who are just learning vocabulary will not get puns."

In fact, for very young children, humorous language is often more about sound than meaning. Highlights senior editor Marileta Robinson says children love silly sounding words, such as you might find in a story where a character hurries "down the hill, blippety, bloppety, blippety, bloppety. Young kids love alliteration, rhyme, made-up words," Robinson says. "In moderation, they can add humor."

What else does Robinson feel is funny for young children? "Exaggeration that builds to possible catastrophe or is just unbelievable." She describes a Highlights story by Janice Tingum in which a grandmother pulls increasingly absurd things from her purse - including a swimming pool and a kitchen sink - while trying to find a pencil for her grandchild.

Robinson says the tension that comes from a scenario that slowly builds can add to the eventual punch line, especially if the building up is reinforced with some kind of refrain. For example, in one Highlights story, "A House for a Mouse" by Crystal Mandell, a mouse discovers a tiny hole and says, "If this were a little bigger, it would make a perfect home for me." Bigger and bigger animals discover the hole, each time a little bit enlarged, and repeat the refrain.

Young children especially love surprises, Robinson says. "Most of our rebus stories use this device. For example in 'Joe, the Herding Dog' by Katy S. Duffield, Ellie is telling her dog to round up the various animals on the farm because it's time for them to go to bed, but when she doesn't want to go to bed, her mom tells the dog to round up Ellie."

Any device an author chooses must be used carefully. "The trick to any humor device is that is must not be gratuitous," Robinson cautions. "Funny words and pratfalls by themselves are not funny. The humorous situation must be treated seriously, as any plot would be. Otherwise, it's like a clown laughing at his own jokes."

HUMOR FOR CHILDREN WHO READ

According to Dr. Paul McGhee, humor researcher and author of Understanding and Promoting the Development of Children's Humor, humor is a kind of intellectual play with ideas. "Children have a built-in tendency to have fun with newly developed skills - both physical and mental." According to McGhee there is a shift in children's humor as children enter school and learn to read. "By six or seven, kids make the exciting discovery that the same word can have two or more different meanings. This means you can now use these extra meanings to trick people. It is only at this point that children really understand the very riddles they've been telling for the past year or more."

Megan McCarthy, author of a number of giggle-worthy picture books, believes the key to humor for anyone is the surprise, the unexpected twist. "Both kids and adults laugh the hardest at things that aren't expected, I think. It's the unpredictability factor. That's what comedy is all about - It's that slow build up with a surprise punch-line. I remember laughing out loud at Madlibs during every fifth grade lunch break. We'd read them aloud and I'd always spit out my milk when I heard the surprise descriptions of otherwise mundane things. Just the word 'poop' combined with the word 'toilet' would set me into a giggle fit."

Most writers keenly remember giggling over the same kinds of bathroom humor; it definitely works with readers. In fact, at the 2003 SCBWI Annual conference in Los Angeles, author Dan Greenburg said the funniest word in the English language for kids is "underpants." But can an author make school-aged kids laugh without dropping their drawers? Is bathroom humor a requirement or a choice?

John J. Bonk, author of Dustin Grubb, One Man Show, says "Humor doesn't have to be in the 'danger zone' of bad taste to appeal to boys or girls, nor does a character have to end up with a chipped tooth of have his head flushed down the toilet to get a laugh. A pesky itch can be just as funny as a whipped-cream pie in the face."

In fact, over-the-top humor can quickly cross over into being too threatening to be funny. After studying what makes kids laugh, Walton feels he's come up with a solid definition. "Humor is surprise without threat or promise." If the surprise comes with a promise - like winning the lottery, it isn't funny. It's wonderful and uplifting, but not funny. And if the surprise comes with a threat - it's more likely to be scary than funny. "While writing humor, you keep in mind what will threaten your audience. You don't surprise them in ways that will make them feel threatened. You don't make fun of them. You don't belittle their deeply held beliefs."

Threatening humor is also not welcome at Highlights, according to Robinson. "Mean-spirited humor, violence, name-calling, sarcasm, insults, ridiculing anyone including adults doesn't work for Highlights - we want to laugh with the characters, not at them."

That doesn't mean humor only works if it reflects a rosy view of life. "The humor in the Dustin Grubbs books comes from the characters and how they react to their world. Dustin has a funny point of view and his take on what's happening around him is where the comedy lies. And the more obstacles he has to deal with, the better. There's that old cliché that all comedy is really rooted in tragedy, which is true. Being locked in a bathroom stall on the most important night of your life or having spaghetti sucked up your nose are pretty tragic situations when they are happening - but somehow they translate to funny."

HUMOR IN NONFICTION

In our own ICL chat room, Ruth McNally Barshaw (author of the Ellie McDoodle series) said, "I believe humor is indispensible. Therefore it ought to be ubiquitous. Even, yes, in nonfiction. I think humor makes nonfiction less dry. It doesn't have to be slapstick. It can be gentle humor."

Humor can also help defuse the tension in a challenging subject. When creating Aliens Are Coming, a picture book about the panic that accompanied the radio performance of War of the Worlds, McCarthy was constantly aware that her subject could be frightening to the young readers. Because the original broadcast of War of the Worlds contained a lot of violence, McCarthy had to choose carefully in what she included and how to portray it. "The parts I left in were the parts I thought were the most fun to illustrate and would be the most entertaining for both kids and adults," she says. "Because the broadcast was pure fiction and could be interpreted in multiple ways, I had a lot of creative freedom. I didn't, however, want to take out the fire and brimstone feeling that the broadcast contained. I made sure the paintings looked dark and mysterious."

Still, the aliens themselves, which had the most potential to be frightening, were definitely portrayed with a light touch. Mccarthy explains, "Some of the aliens are cross-eyed. Others look confused by all the commotion, as if they can't believe what's happening themselves. I always like to make my people look a bit goofy. Instead of making them look like they think their lives are coming to an end, I gave them all a dumbfounded look."

HUMOR AND VOICE

In books like Companions of the Night by Vivian Vande Velde and the Mediator series by Meg Cabot, the use of humor in an otherwise thrilling adventure helps strengthen the voice of the main character. In these books, the humor is nearly always about viewpoint. Vande Velde explains, "The humor in my stories comes from the characters finding themselves in predicaments they are unprepared for, trying to cope, and knowing they are not doing well - so they look at themselves and their situations wryly."

Also, humor makes characters more important to the readers. Vande Velde says, "If you care about the characters, you're much more concerned about their well-being." Clearly whether the humor is part of an otherwise serious plot or is total silliness, both kinds of humor writing have their challenges, and both create passionate fans. Readers love to laugh - even in the tensest situations.