Humor and Rhyme: Great Playmates!

​True fact: kids love books that make them laugh. According to this Scholastic Kids and Family Reading Report, more than 70% of children choose humorous picture books as their favorites. ​

That news should bring a grin to rhyming picture book writers. Rhyme and humor are great playmates! Let’s take a look at two picture books that successfully combine giggles, glee, and meter.

At first glance, COUNTING TO BANANAS: A MOSTLY RHYMING FRUIT BOOK, by Carrie Tillotson, illustrated by Estrella Lourenco, looks like a simple counting book. In this concept book, the main character, a banana, helps readers count fruit.

1 plum
2 figs
3 oranges…

From the start, Tillotson sets up an abcb rhyme scheme, meaning the first and third lines do not rhyme, while second and fourth lines do rhyme. This creates the expectation that the fourth stanza will introduce another fruit that rhymes with “figs.” However, Tillotson disrupts this expectation by making the fourth line an animal rhyme instead of a fruit rhyme. Side comments by an increasingly frustrated banana enhance the silliness.

​Disrupting assumptions with an unexpected rhyme at the end of a repeating pattern is a great way to conjure reader chuckles. Kids will begin to guess at the silliness that follows…

13 melons
14 peaches
15 kumquats…

What crazy interloping animal that rhymes with peaches will appear next??!!!

Playing with unexpected end rhymes is a great way to insure audience engagement!

Another picture book that employs rhyming elements to enhance humor is POO-DUNIT? A FOREST FLOOR MYSTERY, by Katelyn Aronson, illustrated by Stephanie Laberis. 

​In POO-DUNIT, the main character, a mouse, tries to solve the mystery of who has fouled the view outside his home. Aronson combines potty humor, a perennial favorite, with nonfiction information on animal scat and the poetry device of repetition. The repetition takes the form of a refrain that changes slightly with each occurrence.
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Each refrain provides information about different animal scat. For example, when mouse accuses squirrel of leaving the offending “deposit," squirrel says…

​Later, skunk denies being the offender…

By using silly word choice and repetition of the word “poo,” Aronson creates an opportunity for giggles with each refrain.

​If you’re looking to lighten your current manuscript with some humor, try playing with end rhyme expectations or adding a silly refrain.  Leave your reader grinning, and they will reach for your story again and again.

by Rhyme Doctor Michelle Schaub