What children find humorous in the books they read and how they express their responses

The present study examined children's responses to humor in fiction in orde r to (1) to discover what children find humorous in books they read or in t hose read to them, (2) to discover how they respond to humorous books, and (3) to understand the implications these responses have for their comprehen sion and appreciation of humor and for their reading interests and preferen ces. A qualitative field study was conducted to study responses of children in one grade 4/5 classroom over a five month period. Data were collected b y means of participant observation, interviews, and analysis of documents. The results revealed that participants appreciated humor related to (1) sup eriority or sense of accomplishment, (2) physical events and appearances, ( 3) the scatological and gross, (4) language and wordplay. Children most oft en responded to books by: (1) retelling or summarizing, (2) reading aloud f rom the text, or (3) offering subjective evaluations. Less frequently, they (I) made personal connections or connections to other books, (2) offered s tatements of analysis, or (3) offered interpretations. Responses revealed t hat some children lacked background knowledge necessary to understand and a ppreciate potentially humorous material. Sensitivity to more subtle forms o f humor was heightened when passages were read aloud by a skilled reader. T he importance of reading and sharing humor as a social process was also rev ealed by the study's results.