In the introduction to Funny Business, the first genre-specific volume from the Guys Read Library, Jon Scieszka quotes E. B. White. “Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process.” So I’m not going to try to explain why this book is funny. Funny is funny. Trust me.Ladies, I’m taking to you here. It’s from the Guys Read Library. Guys. Read. We don’t expect you to get it. Yes, some of you will claim you get it, and some of you may indeed, but many of you will simply realize that the boys in your classrooms and homes get it. And that should be enough.
You’ll nod and smile, but do you really understand the hilarity in a dropped hot dog (Best of Friends by Mac Barnett) or shrinkage (Will by Adam Rex)? Do any of you actually eat raw hot dogs, let alone make fake nipples out of them (What? You Think You Got It Rough? by Christopher Paul Curtis)? Ever perform self-surgery on a wart (The Bloody Souvenir by Jack Gantos)?
Do any of you think the black and white alternate cover from Adam Rex is funnier than the final cover?
Well that gives you a taste, anyway, of what’s in the book. And it’s funny. Ten short stories from the authors above as well as Eoin Colfer, Jeff Kinney, Kate DiCamillo, David Yoo, David Lubar, and Paul Feig, all meant to tickle a guy’s funny bone, and all successfully jamming that funny bone squarely into arm-numbing merriment.
How about we let the authors themselves give a short introduction?
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