In different parts of the world people dress differently, talk differently, but they all laugh in the same language. Humor is one of the best things to draw people together: strangers, neighbors, families. A funny story shared is twice as funny as one read alone. As Howard Pyle, our great American illustrator and writer said, "One must have a pinch of seasoning in this dull, heavy life of ours; one should never have all the troubles, the labors, the cares, with never a whit of innocent jollity and mirth."
Children adore funny stories and pure nonsense. They love to laugh. They love stories of the foolish fellow who gets the best of his too smart brothers. They love incongruities and exaggeration.
Magic is a magical word that children love, too. To them it is more than taking rabbits out of a hat or doing a disappearing act. To people of an earlier day, magic answered many questions which now are answered by science. Airplanes were unknown, so the storytellers invented seven league boots for their heroes whenever these heroes had to get some place fast in order, perhaps to rescue a princess shut up in an enchanted tower. One jump and the "prince" had travelled a hundred miles, two jumps and he had gone two hundred miles, three jumps and he was there.
Children like to pretend. Magic lamps, silver wands, animals that talk, strange creatures with magic powers, giants and witches are their very special province.
Padraic Colum once wrote: "It will do no harm if things are left mysterious, such mysterious things are magic, and magic is an element that is not only accepted but is looked for. The probabilities that we know from experience have no place in the world we make for a child, where a tree may talk; a swan may change into a king's daughter; a castle may be built in an instant. We know a tree, a swan and a castle by their limitations, but a child knows them in their boundless possibilities."
Here are some of the best stories of humor and imagination, many old, some not so old–all loved by children.
– PHYLLIS FENNER (Introduction)
Did you find this review helpful?