But funny isn’t something we’re taught to respect. That could be why, when writers embark on the serious business of crossing cultural boundaries in their work, they don’t often start out with humor. In 2004, Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith spoke at the Reading the World conference about the dearth of funny books with cultural resonance. Why, they asked, are multicultural books so very serious?

It was a valid question then. What’s surprising is the degree to which it remains valid today, especially in books for middle-grade readers. Books set in foreign countries are still largely about oppression, while those in hyphenated-American communities are about the challenges of finding oneself and becoming American. While many have humorous moments, they are not, by and large, funny books.

It seems especially necessary that children’s books, in the balance, convey more than a one-dimensional image of “the other,” yet the identity tale of oppressed people continues to dominate those books dubbed “multicultural.” Perhaps the problem is that the very notion of a culturally grounded story is perceived as worthy and important, not concepts we associate with laughter. But the truth is that you can’t see people as fully human if all you can feel for them is pity. Funny books with cultural contexts are capable of subverting and questioning issues of identity and belonging. By upsetting worthy apple carts, they offer new and necessary views of characters with cultural connections beyond the mainstream.

The pioneer in mixing humor with matters of race, culture, and, yes, oppression is undoubtedly Christopher Paul Curtis. The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 was published in 1995. The scene in which Byron’s lips get stuck to the family car’s side-view mirror is the one most readers call to mind, but there are others, many of them much more pointed than that one, as when the boys are faced with the prospect of going to the bathroom in the woods. Byron says, sardonically, “Snakes? I ain’t scared of no damn snake, it’s the people I’m worried about.” He means white people, of course, on the family’s journey south. The humor slams the reader with the grimness of the circumstances, even while it gives the characters a means of coping.

Humor in The Watsons is a mechanism Curtis uses to lead readers to an understanding of the insidiousness of racism and discrimination. It allows us to align clearly with one group of people and against another, in a deliberate stance that counters the prejudices of the period. If you’re with Kenny and his family, you can’t condone the racism they have to endure. Inequity, discrimination, and injustice give thematic impetus to the characters’ journeys. Because we can laugh, we can bear to navigate those obstacles along with them.

Since 1995, other writers of multicultural books have ventured into humorous terrain. In Julia Alvarez’s How Tía Lola Came to Visit Stay, the unorthodox use of a strikeout in the title places a tongue-in-cheek tonal stamp on the work before the reader has turned a single page. It’s plain that this relative is about to change young Miguel’s life forever. He can’t hold out against this woman who is practically a force of nature, and neither can the reader. Her character, larger than life and twice as real, creates a playfulness that runs through the book and its sequels.

One way to cross cultural borders is by normalizing customs and preferences that might typically be seen as un-American. Lenore Look does this in her chapter books with Chinese American protagonists. In Ruby Lu, Brave and True, for example, foods like “jook” are casually named in passing. Don’t know what that is? Well, all right, there’s a glossary, but does it really matter? After all, when I read Enid Blyton in my youth I had no idea what scones were. It didn’t stop me for a minute.

Ruby’s Chinese school is cleverly normalized by the elegant teacher, by the funny coincidence of a namesake friend, and by Mom’s memories of English school in China. A bilingual dog responds to commands in Cantonese and English—a subtle suggestion that in this world, both languages are equally privileged. Normalizing the unfamiliar allows the reader to laugh with, rather than at, the character in such a story. It also implies that you don’t need to understand everything about a person in order to share a smile. By placing cultural markers in this way, the writer draws borders between cultures, and then makes them permeable, thereby giving the reader permission to laugh.

Look’s Alvin Ho books feature an endearing boy character with a family and community whose imperatives are often at odds with his own fears. The first two books, Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things and Alvin Ho: Allergic to Camping, Hiking, and Other Natural Disasters, and the fourth, Alvin Ho: Allergic to Dead Bodies, Funerals, and Other Fatal Circumstances, are laugh-out-loud funny. They adroitly traverse the emotional spaces of Alvin’s Concord, Massachusetts, neighborhood and his Chinese American family. A less felicitous choice in the third title, Alvin Ho: Allergic to Birthday Parties, Science Projects, and Other Man-Made Catastrophes, is a plot line related to “playing settlers and Indians” at a friend’s birthday party. Perhaps unintentionally, it nonetheless objectifies American Indians, and normalizes a controversial playground remnant from the colonial past. To me, it seemed a perplexing and discomfiting element. Sometimes those cultural border-crossing zones contain landmines. Sometimes a joke can backfire. Maybe it’s just that as a writer from an underrepresented group myself, I feel a need to be particularly mindful when I’m engaged in the representation of others.

In Daniel Pinkwater’s The Neddiad: How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization, the narrative voice leads readers into a richly funny rendition of 1940s America. The book stars Neddie, son of the Wentworthstein shoelace king, along with a sizable cast of eccentric characters. Nor is race ignored as a social factor of the time—a racist comment made at the Brown-Sparrow Military Academy hits home because of its offhandedness. Neddie doesn’t get it, but the reader will.

The Neddiad and its sequels, The Yggyssy and Adventures of a Cat-Whiskered Girl, are madcap escapades with space aliens, baffling allies, and true-blue villains. Houses appear and vanish at whim, the Catskills are peopled with giants, reality itself sometimes seems a mirage, and the jokes range from subtle to slapstick and everything in between. Time itself may be the cultural border crossed in these books. They take the reader into a past with many racial, cultural, and even religious strands, from all of which Pinkwater weaves a genuinely American humorous fantasy.

A comparable book with clear cultural context is Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories, where comic book and cartoon conventions meet the movies of Satyajit Ray. The book is a phantasmagorical journey driven by the ill will of a villain who represents the silencing of all stories.

The sequel, Luka and the Fire of Life, draws its inspiration from sources as diverse as Beowulf and Super Mario. While equally filled with dramatic moments, it lacks the ingenuity, the freshness, and the heart of Haroun. Both books, however, are packed with layers of humor accessible to all, along with bilingual jokes that are special treats for cultural insiders.

It’s hard to juggle insiders’ jokes while crossing cultural borders, but they can be used simultaneously as a nod to readers in the know and an invitation to others. In Janet Wong’s verse novel Minn and Jake, Jake’s racial background is never mentioned. In the sequel, Minn and Jake’s Almost Terrible Summer, we learn that he has a Korean grandmother. That makes him one-quarter Korean, or as he says, “Quarpa.” By punning on the insider’s term hapa, the author invites not only Minn to share in the joke but the reader as well.

Humorous outsider narratives are even rarer than funny books written from within the cultures concerned. It’s easy to see why. When you’re treading on unfamiliar ground, humor can seem to add an unnecessary banana peel. The outsider risks being tripped up by nuance and implication, regional specificity and the dangers of caricature. Candace Fleming takes all these risks and more in Lowji Discovers America, her story of a boy from India whose family is Parsi, belonging to the Zoroastrian faith. Lowji’s spunky character and his occasional precocity go far in establishing his appeal. A best friend left behind in India is counterpoint to new friends in America without for a minute implying a hierarchical comparison between the two. Of course, humor can also sometimes have a long fuse, tapping the deep and personal sources that Eudora Welty said give rise to all story. As a result, it’s possible that to a Parsi reader, some element or other might ring false. Sometimes writing funny books can call for bravery in a writer.

An improbable combination (best friends in suburban Maryland and an eccentric Bollywood movie star) served as my entry into the subversive world of humor. My middle-grade novel The Grand Plan to Fix Everything employs cultural fusion to define the relationship between best friends of whom one is Indian-American and the other is not. Eleven-year-old Dini is devastated because her family’s impending move to India means that she and her best friend Maddie will have to miss Bollywood dance camp—in Maryland.

There is no question in my mind that whatever loopiness I’ve succeeded in bringing to the page I owe to those Wodehouse novels I read years ago. They were not written for children, but I read them with my eleven-year-old hunger to understand the world. Humor can help a reader do just that. It must be handled with care, so the reader is laughing with the characters and situations, as in the work of Christopher Paul Curtis, and not at them.

In generous hands, humor can appear to fix the things that need fixing in the world. And then it can turn around and wink at you, the reader, as if you’re complicit in the manufacture of the fiction. Children in the middle grades are eccentric, idiosyncratic, and poised on the brink of reinventing both themselves and their world. The middle-grade reader is a perfect audience for the writer seeking to bridge gaps, make connections, or cross borders of culture, race, place, and language—with laughter leading the way.

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Illustration: Jose-Luis Olivares

“Hi, Mum! Hi, Pop!” Mike squeaks as he hops from the screen onto the table. “Look at me! I’m the first boy sent by television!”

Mrs. Teavee shrieks. “You’re an inch tall! Oh, my sweet boy!”

“Sweet?” Grandpa Joe whispers to me. “He blew Violet to bits!”

True, Mike did chuck his flinty Everlasting Gobstopper at the ballooning, purple Violet, popping her and splattering blueberry juice, sugary blood, and bile all over the Inventing Room. But Violet was hardly a sweetie. She was, after all, the one who had shoved Veruca into a mob of vicious, mutant squirrels and happily snapped her gum as the gnawed Princess of Nuts slid down the garbage chute. Of course, Veruca herself had previously kicked Augustus squarely in his generous lederhosen, dumping him into the churning chocolate river that led to his being swirled into fudge. (I regret ever having eaten a morsel manufactured in this place.)

Yet I find it difficult to condemn my fellow contestants for their assorted cruelties. Our sadistic host, who at present is suppressing snickers as he unapologetically consoles Mrs. Teavee, lured us all like Hansels and Gretels into this gingerbread house of horrors. If anyone here lacks sweetness, it is Mr. Willy Wonka, demon chocolatier. When this bloody contest concludes and I claim my prize, I will personally see to it that he receives his just desserts.

We were five ticket-holders this morning; now the remaining lone obstacle separating me from my prize has been greatly, er, reduced—to the size of a gummy bear, in fact. The humane thing would be to put wee Mike out of his misery. At least this is how I rationalize the heinous crime I am about to commit.

I reach into my tattered pocket and silently commend myself for having scooped up some of the treats I found behind the door marked EXPLODING CANDY FOR YOUR ENEMIES. I select a weapon disguised as a tiny yellow butter mint. It ought to be sufficient to take out a target so small.

“Go on, Charlie, finish the job,” Grandpa Joe says, nudging me with his bony elbow. “Then it’s one last moralistic Oompa-Loompa song and we’ve won.”

I nod, bracing myself for the blast, and lob the mint.

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Mother Goose was upset. How could parents say that…word, that awful word, to their children? How could they use it in front of innocent little darlings almost fast asleep? Their drowsy eyes. Well-washed hands clutching the crisp, white sheets.

She loved children. Why, tonight she was baby-sitting Jack and Jill, Little Jack Horner, and the Three Little Kittens. When they were ready for bed, they would be tucked in and read to, not shouted at. Not sworn at.

Whiskers, Cuddles, and Boots mewed at her feet. So sweet. They’ve lost their mittens. Well, they can’t be far.

Mother Goose looked toward the corner where Little Jack Horner was jabbing his thumb into an already mutilated pie. And then holding his hand up so the purple, sticky juice ran down his arm and stained his new shirt. Good Lord.

“Oh, look. Here are your mittens. Now go and play while I try to get young Mr. Horner cleaned up.”

Why didn’t he cooperate? Why did he kick at her slightly swollen ankles? And why did she have to listen to Jill and the other Jack bicker:

“I didn’t trip you. I just wanted to carry the pail for a change. But oh, no. Mr. Big Shot, Mr. I’m-All-Testosterone-All-the-Time has to carry it.”

“You’re a girl. You’re supposed to just hold my hand.”

“Oh, bullshit. And you should go to Urgent Care. Head injuries can be fatal. That would make a lovely bedtime story—’Jack and Jill went up the hill / but Jack fell down and died from a subdural hematoma.’ That’ll send the tots right to Dreamland.”

Mother Goose shushed them both as Jack Horner pointed with his one clean hand and laughed diabolically. “Look!”

Oh, for God’s sake. Whiskers had his head stuck in a mitten and appeared to be suffocating.

“He did it,” shouted Boots, pointing to Cuddles, who made his wide eyes wider: Who, me?

Mother Goose managed to wrestle the mitten off of Whiskers, who promptly hissed and bit her in the wing.

“Go to bed!” shouted Mother Goose. “All of you. To bed. Now!”

Muttering to one another, and dragging their feet, everyone got into the big bed Mother Goose was so proud of.

“That’s better,” she said. “One story. And then right to sleep.”

Cuddles whispered to Boots, “I’ll bet you can’t eat a whole mitten. I did and it was delicious.”

“Has anybody seen my pie?” asked Jack Horner.

Jill sat straight up. “Is that what that is? I thought Jack was bleeding out.”

Mother Goose arched her long neck. She spread her wings so a giant shadow fell across the bed.

“Go to sleep!” she shouted. “I mean it. Go the f— !”

She almost said it.

The room darkened on its own. The kittens huddled together. Jill searched for a hand to hold. Little Jack Horner whimpered and pulled the covers over his head.

Mother Goose limped to the window. There was that moon—a cold, dead rock in the sky spreading its feeble, borrowed light over a whole new world.

THE END

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Fashion and children’s literature icon Heidi struts onto the runway, leading one of her goats on a chic, to-die-for leash.

HEIDI: Hello, everyvon and velcome to da runvay! I am your host, Heidi. This is Ziegfried. Your challenge vas to design a fresh new look for some of children’s literature’s biggest icons. Von of you vill be da vinner of this challenge, and von of you…vill be out. Let’s meet da judges!

Fresh from Mr. McGregor’s garden, fashion designer and style icon Mr. Peter Rabbit!

PETER RABBIT: Hellooo, darlings! Call me P.R.!

HEIDI: From the streets of Paris, where she walked da two straight lines of classic style and wild gypsy élan, our own Madeline!

MADELINE: ’Allo, everyone!

HEIDI: Our guest judge tonight is as famous for his sleek Italian line of clothing for real boys as he is for his brutal honesty. Pinocchio!

PINOCCHIO: Grazie, molto grazie, Heidi! I am overwhelmed by the honor of being asked to be a part of this wonderful, glorious show! And to be in the presence of such prestigious fellow-judges! It’s such a privilege that I can barely—whooooops! Oh, no! No! Not on TV! Wait a minute! What I meant to say was: This will be an interesting experience! There! That’s better!

HEIDI: Let’s start da show!

Later, the three finalists have left the runway—one has flounced off—and the judges are having a little chat.

HEIDI: Judges, let’s talk about da vons vee liked. Vat did vee think about Puss in Boots’s new look for Eloise?

MADELINE: J’adore the new Eloise!

HEIDI: Puss in Boots really did a great job.

P.R.: Just taming that—to quote Eloise’s Nanny—gawd-awful hair made such a difference! The dreadlocks—fabulous! And brilliant choice keeping her in separates.

PINOCCHIO: The Princess lines—so slimming!—especially on someone with a real-girl figure.

P.R.: And now I’m asking myself, why was she wearing that puffy-sleeved white blouse and that horrendous pleated skirt for all those years? I mean, come on. Isn’t her mother supposed to be a friend of Lily Daché, for crying
out loud?

HEIDI: I haff never understood those straps on dat skirt…

MADELINE: Not to mention zose peenk bloomers!

Heidi, Madeline, Pinocchio, and P.R. all shake their heads and make tutting noises.

P.R.: Well, I would have accepted almost anything Puss in Boots came up with for Eloise, but I have to say I was thrilled with her new look. But did anyone else notice the sloppy hemline?

HEIDI: He ran out of time again, I’m thinking? Vat did you all think about the accessories?

PINOCCHIO: I was so pleased to see her out of Mary Jane shoes…

P.R.: Oh, thank god! Such a cliché! The new high tops were inspired. They said “young,” they said “active”…

MADELINE: Yes, and eet definitely said “urban,” which we want for Eloise. Very witty, I thought.

HEIDI: I don’t know…did they detract from the overall look?

PINOCCHIO: Maybe if they had been black instead of that violent cerise?

P.R.: I was just so happy that Puss in Boots didn’t trot out yet another set of boots. It was a pop of color, maybe just too loud a pop?

ALL: Maybe…maybe so…

HEIDI: Let’s talk about Cinderella’s new look for Little Boy Blue.

P.R.: Oh, my GOD! That was a disaster!

MADELINE: An absolute disaster. Zut alors! I could not look.

P.R.: I mean, can Cinderella show us anything else? It’s the same costume-y look over and over! And why on earth would you take away that classic blue that he’s known for, for goodness sake, and put him in—I don’t even know what to call that color! Was it some sort of Marshmallow-Easter-Egg-Rainbow-Brite mauve?

PINOCCHIO: I have to say, I liked the impudence of that silhouette.

HEIDI: (after a pause) Uh-oh! I think dat you are maybe not telling the whole truth?

PINOCCHIO: (flustered) Well, very truthfully, it made him look—I hate to say this—but he actually looked like a prom queen.

MADELINE: Zat is all she has shown us! Either a ball gown or zee dress for za prom. Quel horreur!

P.R.: Exactly! The challenge was not to make the icons completely unrecognizable! Or to put them in drag! It was to update their look! I was dumbstruck! He could have been on a float in the Toyland Parade! A complete miss.

PINOCCHIO: Absolutely wrong for him; especially for someone with such an earthy realism as Little Boy Blue.

P.R.: Those spangles! The bugle beads!
My god!

HEIDI: And Cinderella vas not at all interested in vat vee had to say, either.

MADELINE: Oh, and to tell us zat ice-cream pink was going to be zee new pastel blue? We are not idiots, non?

P.R.: I just wanted to say to her, ‘Listen, Princess, you might think you’re all that because you design for an exclusive clientele now, but please.’ Let’s be honest, who in her kingdom is going to tell Cinderella that she only designs looks fit for balls? That’s just not real life! Show us some day wear, for heaven’s sake!

PINOCCHIO: I did enjoy the flocks of songbirds that continuously fluttered around that look, though. It was really quite daring.

MADELINE: Oui, zat part did actually work. Not many designers could carry that off.

P.R.: Hell-ooo! Busy much? No one could carry that off!

HEIDI: Okay, so vee agree dat look did not so much vork. Vat did vee think about Eeyore’s look for Raggedy Ann?

P.R.: Oh, I mean, come on! Give me a break! He actually kept those red-and-white horizontal striped leggings!

MADELINE: I cannot look. My eyes are bleeding from zees leggings.

PINOCCHIO: Well, I disagree! The leggings are part of her iconic look. I wouldn’t have recognized her without them. (after a pause) I’m telling the truth!

P.R.: Well, dotted Swiss fabric was part of Heidi’s look, too, but she’s not completely bedecked in it anymore! God! We all know how I feel about leggings anyway—but those!

HEIDI: I am still wearing the dotted Swiss! You just can’t see it anymore!

Nervous laughter from all.

P.R.: Oh, my god!

HEIDI: Eeyore’s designs up to this point have been so Goth; I vas happy to see a little brightness. And dose leggings drew attention to Raggedy Ann’s gorgeous gams, but I think she’s maybe de only doll who has de legs for dat.

P.R.: Well, I was thrilled to see Rags in a simple cocktail dress and out of that boring pinafore finally.

MADELINE: I cannot remember zee last time I have seen a pinafore?

PINOCCHIO: Little House on the Prairie?

P.R.: Miss Minchin’s Select Seminary for Young Ladies?

HEIDI: Dat is like the Ice Age in fashion!

P.R.: Well, the update for Rags was well overdue. We disagree on the leggings, but the toned-down hair—

MADELINE: Zat auburn!

P.R.:—in a sleek bun? Fabulous! Could not have been more fabulous!

MADELINE: Trés chic. And—comment dit-on?—completely on trend.

HEIDI: And her makeup! Her eyes—not so button-y.

MADELINE: Zat smoky eye gave her so much more depth.

PINOCCHIO: And when we asked the model to scrooch down so we didn’t see so much of the leggings—

ALL: “…so much better!” “Miles better!” “God, yes!”

The discussion continues until a decision is finally reached. The designers are called back to the runway. Heidi addresses them while Ziegfried nibbles on his leash.

HEIDI: Designers, as you know, in fashion and in children’s literature, von day you are in and the next day—or hundreds of years later—you’re out. Puss in Boots, vee loved da new Eloise—very urban and soigné. And you were de only von to show us separates. However, while we were happy to see you step away from showing us another pair of boots, her shoes were maybe a bit too much the wrong color and were distracting. And, once again, your tailoring vas not so polished.

Cinderella, even though vee did not like to see Little Boy Blue in pink, and were hoping to not see him in a ball gown, vee did admire your commitment to your vision. Vee also thought that accessorizing with a flock of songbirds was a bold new choice.

Eeyore, your re-invention of Raggedy Ann showed us a surprisingly cheerful side of you! While vee disagreed about the leggings (P.R. can be heard in background: “God!”), vee appreciated that you left in Raggedy Ann’s signature red-and-white stripes instead of insisting on your usual palette of blacks and grays.

Dramatic pause. Throbbing music rises.

HEIDI: Eeyore, congratulations! You are da vinner of this challenge! You gave Raggedy Ann an entirely new, quirky-punk-glam look while hanging on to her signature red-and-white leggings. And, you did not give up your own individual style. Da look was modern, imaginative, sophisticated, and even a little naughty. I myself vould vear this look. Good job! You may leave the runway.

Eeyore shakes his head in disbelief and mumbles his thanks to the judges. He shambles off the stage.

HEIDI: Puss in Boots, Cinderella; dat means dat von of you vill be out!

Almost unbearably long pause. Music swells to headache-inducing levels.

HEIDI: Cinderella, you’re out! While vee appreciate your daring in using flocks of songbirds to accessorize, you showed us, vonce again, another ball gown. Vee asked you in da last two challenges to show us something new.

Also, while vee had asked for an update on da look of a children’s book icon, vee did not vant you to go so far overboard. Putting Little Boy Blue in pink, and in a dress, vas a mistake. Auf Wiedersehen! (kiss-kiss!)

Close-up of Eeyore backstage.

EEYORE: Well, it’s my first win…and it’s probably my last.

Backstage, after the hissing, braying, and sobbing has subsided, a red-faced and disheveled Cinderella spits at the camera.

CINDERELLA: Well, those (bleep)ing judges are just, plain wrong! They clearly have a very old-fashioned idea of what fashion is. Bunch of (bleep) (bleep)ing (bleep) fuddie-duddies! (Bleep)! I can’t believe I’m out! Little Boy Blue looked fabulous! Especially in that off-the-shoulder neckline! Everyone looks fabulous in ball gowns, and looking (bleeping) fabulous is what fashion is all about! They have no (bleep)ing imagination! [Crying now.] You have to be visionary! I cannot believe I lost to that (bleep)ing (bleep) ass! My Fairy Godmother says that everything happens for a reason, so I’m thinking I’m out because I’m too much of a threat! Don’t worry, I am certainly not going to stop designing! I’ve already submitted sketches for the next Toyland Parade’s “Bears of Fairytale Land” float. With my genius, those Bears are gonna look (bleep)ing magnificent!

Roll credits.

ANNOUNCER: Stay tuned for “The Housewives of Fairytale Land!” Will Snow White and Red Riding Hood resolve their quarrel? Is Sleeping Beauty really going to change her name back to Briar Rose? Can the Little Mermaid cope with the pressures of life on Land? And how are the new couple, Tinkerbell and Captain Hook, fitting in to Fairytale Land?

Close shot of Tinkerbell.

TINKERBELL: I don’t belong here with these crazy-(bleep) people. They’re all exactly alike: beautiful, obedient victims—not one of them had a real job before she was married! It’s like the (bleep)ing Stepford Fairytale Wives around here! Sick of it!

—Elizabeth Thomas

Illustrations by Lauren Kim.

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