A review by nerfherder86
Funny Business by Jon Scieszka

4.0

Great book for young guys: ten short stories by different authors, with plenty of gross-out humor and silliness. One is a science fiction story about a guy's parents being taken over by aliens; another is a bloody horror story about what happens when a wild kid doesn't tell his parents about the stupid stuff he's done to himself; Eoin Colfer's story "Artemis Begins" talks about his prankster brother and how that gave him the idea for his character Artemis Fowl. There's a goofy history project-gone-awry, a crotchety grandpa who tells a whopper of a memory, and an adopted evil turkey who is taking over the household. But my favorite story was "Dear Lady Author," cowritten by Jon Scieszka and Kate DiCamillo, in which a young man has to write a letter to an author for his school assignment. She writes back to him, but doesn't answer his questions in the way he thought she would. It is really funny and sweet. I would recommend this book to 4th-5th and 6th graders mostly, because the humor is pretty sophomoric and most of the characters are in those grades. There's a couple where they are in 8th grade but I can't see an 8th grader picking this up on his own. If a student needs something short to read, though, and hates to read, definitely try to get this in his hands. Hopefully it will inspire him to read something longer by any of the authors in it.