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jconte's review
3.0
I received this book as a GoodReads Giveaway. Admittedly, if I saw the book in a store I probably would not have picked it up because the cover, size, and illustrations make it look like a children’s picture book. However, I thoroughly enjoy humor and I thought this book would be a refreshing read.
At just 55 pages, this book just skims the surface, yet the author gives the sense of having done her research. It seems that any one of the themes in this book could be expanded upon, but that she preferred to keep this readable for kids (there is enough substance here to interest adults as well).
The author begins by contextualizing and defining humor and quickly moves on to explaining different theories behind why people find certain things funny. Here she cites Freud and V.S. Ramachandran. The book then explores how gender, age, social context and culture influence the types of humor that are most popular – here her examination of European, British, American, Japanese, and Chinese humor is very interesting and could be a whole separate book. The rest of the book looks at humor from historical and scientific perspectives.
At just 55 pages, this book just skims the surface, yet the author gives the sense of having done her research. It seems that any one of the themes in this book could be expanded upon, but that she preferred to keep this readable for kids (there is enough substance here to interest adults as well).
The author begins by contextualizing and defining humor and quickly moves on to explaining different theories behind why people find certain things funny. Here she cites Freud and V.S. Ramachandran. The book then explores how gender, age, social context and culture influence the types of humor that are most popular – here her examination of European, British, American, Japanese, and Chinese humor is very interesting and could be a whole separate book. The rest of the book looks at humor from historical and scientific perspectives.
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