Fun & Entertainment · Digital book

The Funny Bone Files

By Sikho

Zoe Marchetti has always been the funny one — until a joke she tells in class gets a big laugh from everybody except the one person it was about. When the new school librarian catches her replaying it alone in the library, he doesn't lecture her. He proposes something better: a real investigation into what actually makes something funny, using real research from real scientists. Zoe, her best friend Ravi, and the quiet new kid Nadia form the Funny Bone Files — a case-file club that spends ten weeks cracking open the actual mechanics of humor. They learn why a setup-and-punchline works (and why the third joke in a group of three almost always lands funniest), why puns suddenly start making sense around age six or seven, why a good riddle is really a trap for someone else's brain, why a pretend fall is funny but a real one isn't, why dad jokes are corny on purpose, why laughter spreads through a room like a yawn, and why the exact same joke can be hilarious to some people and hurtful to one. Along the way, Zoe has to face the person her first joke actually hurt — and figure out, for real, the difference between a joke that's funny with somebody and a joke that's funny at them. Grounded in real research (Paul McGhee's work on how kids discover wordplay, the University of Colorado Boulder's Benign Violation Theory, real studies on laughter and empathy) and packed with genuine, kid-tested jokes, riddles, and try-it-yourself activities, The Funny Bone Files is a joke book that also teaches kids how comedy actually works — and how to use it kindly.

134 minutes estimated reading

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