Humour has always occupied an odd place in education. Everyone agrees it helps children engage, but it’s rarely treated as essential. Funny books are often framed as a reward (something children earn after the “real learning” is done) rather than as a legitimate vehicle for development.
This perception has consequences, particularly for children from marginalized communities. When representation is treated primarily as an educational responsibility, humour is often the first thing to disappear. Stories become careful, earnest, and purpose-built to teach history, explain identity, or address injustice. All important work, but this is incomplete for an important reason: children not only need to understand who they are, but they also need to enjoy being who they are.
Humour Is Not the Opposite of Serious Learning
Research in child development and education consistently shows that humour improves attention, memory, and emotional regulation. Laughter lowers stress, increases openness, and helps children process complexity without becoming overwhelmed.
Yet when it comes to culturally specific books, humour is often treated as risky. Authors and publishers worry about being misunderstood or minimizing real struggles, and the risk is definitely real. In my own work, I’ve spent hours thinking up worst-case interpretations, reworking material, and gaining insight from community members. But when we shy away from those humorous possibilities instead of developing them, the result is a landscape where children frequently see themselves represented only in moments of gravity. Heavy, boring books or attempts at humour so thin and safe that they barely merit a grin.
But here’s what we’re missing when we don’t go for the jokes: Funny stories let readers say “kids like me get to laugh, kids like me get to be ridiculous, kids like me get to make mistakes, cause chaos, and recover.” Okay, maybe kids don’t use those words, but you get the idea.
Why Marginalized Communities Especially Need Funny Stories
For children navigating cultural difference, humour normalizes their presence. I really can’t say that loudly enough: Humour. Normalizes. Their. Presence. It places them firmly in the imaginative, playful space that childhood occupies for everyone else.
When children only see their culture reflected through struggle or instruction, they may internalize the idea that their identity exists primarily to be examined or explained (this is something I’ve mentioned in a previous article). Humorous stories interrupt that pattern by showing characters inhabiting identity fully and joyfully.
Humour gives children emotional flexibility. It allows them to explore fear without panic, conflict without despair, and difference without isolation.
Funny Books Build Emotional Competence
Children’s humour often relies on escalation, surprise, and absurdity, which are structures that mirror how children experience the world. These stories teach emotional skills without naming them: managing frustration, recovering from mistakes, improvising, tolerating uncertainty, and finding agency in chaos.
For marginalized children, this offers a model of strength rooted not only in endurance, but in flexibility and joy.
The Cost of Taking Representation Too Seriously
There is a cost to representation that is always solemn. It can make identity feel fragile, like something that must be handled carefully and protected from humour. Funny books collapse that distance. They invite children into the story not as students, but as participants.
And why does that matter, especially now? Children today are growing up in an environment saturated with anxiety. In this context, humour is not frivolous; it’s grounding. When humour is present in culturally diverse stories, it reframes identity as a source of creativity and delight rather than obligation.
Reclaiming Humour as a Core Tool
Funny books do serious work. They build confidence, foster belonging, expand emotional range, and make identity feel spacious rather than constrained. If representation is meant to help children thrive, humour must be part of the picture; not as decoration, but as a core ingredient.
Rick Duchalski is the founder of Mad Dreidel Press and author of Leah’s Magic Dreidel (2025), Don’t Unbraid the Challah! (2026) and Carl (2026).
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