A review by readingonfordearlife
Funny Business by Jon Scieszka

4.0

NOTE: I won this book on a GoodReads First Reads giveaway. This volume of ten short stories is a fun mix of silly and humorous writing from some of today's most popular children's and young adult authors and illustrators. As with any eclectic short story collection, I liked some pieces more than others. Several of the stories are obviously geared more toward preteen boys (but, hey I can't really fault the authors or editor for this...the book is called "Guys Read" after all!), and are therefore full of what my mother calls 'bathroom humor' and jokes about bodily functions. But then there were two stand-out stories in this collection that basically forced me to add another star to my rating of the book overall. Kate DiCamillo and Jon Scieszka teamed up and wrote "Your Question for the Author Here," which is an epistolary story that centers on a back-and-forth exchange between a preteen boy and a female author, when the boy is assigned an author study project for his English class. I loved this story...it is funny and sweet and just about perfectly written. The second story I liked was David Yoo's "Fistful of Feathers," about a father's quest to make his son more manly by bringing home a pet turkey...that turns out to have a very sinister side! This one made me laugh aloud several times because it was just so comically absurd! I would recommend this collection of short stories to boys 10 and up...and girls might even like a few of the stories too!