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Full Transcript:

Cat:
So a big hello to our Highlights Foundation family. We’re so happy to have you here with us. For those of you that may not know me, I’m Cat Galeano, my pronouns are she/her, and I’m the social media manager here at the Highlights Foundation, joining you from Westchester, NY on the traditional lands of the Siwanoy people. Apart from all the fun things I get to do at Highlights Foundation, I am also a writer and a reader who is very excited to welcome back our friend and faculty, Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen, who will be teaching the upcoming mini Giggles and Laughs, Connecting with Humor in Picture Books, Early Readers, and Chapter Books on March 18th and 20th.

Well, before we dive in, I want to remind our viewers that joining in on any Highlights Foundation session, to do so with no hate, no harm and no harrassment of any kind. And now let’s get started. So my first question to you is–I’m going to be a little honest here–and one of the reasons I appreciate you so much is because I think you’re one of the funniest people. So, do you remember something humorous from a book from your childhood or something you maybe read to your kids that stuck with you and why.

Sudipta:
Alright, that’s a great question…from my childhood…ell, like my, my gut reaction is to say I don’t think there was anything funny about my childhood. I don’t remember anything funny and I feel like, that’s what a lot of us do. But I’m sure there were…ut for my kids, when they were little, there were certainly books that I loved and they were always funny books and one of my favorites that I think I can still recite to this day is is a book called But Not the Hippopotamus, by Sandra Boynton. And what I loved about it is that it combines two things that I love. It’s a really bouncy rhythm and rhyme, and it’s just fun in that way. And it’–the joke is unexpected, right? You’re smiling all the way through the book, because it’s just kind of cute ridiculous scenes, that she’s outlining, but somehow, even though they’re ridiculous, they work in this world that she’s created, but then at the end she set you up with this expectation and she completely confounds it at the end and it just makes you kind of laugh because it’s you, you’ve been conditioned to expect something and then it’s something else. But again, that completely makes sense. But it was not what you expected.

Cat:
Awesome. Thank you for that answer. I’m trying to, I was thinking too when I, when we were writing these questions, like what’s the…what’s a humorous book? I think I can’t remember anything from childhood, but I think from when I was in my MFA, reading all sorts of kid’s books, I think the Jon Klassen books really cracked me up there…the hat one? Like I just thought they were hilarious. So, so I’m really excited to, to kind of peek in on this box because I’ll get to monitor it. So I’m very excited.

Sudipta:
Again, the books that kind of make you…they still fall into the category that you’re expecting. Another nother book that I used to love reading my kids is called My Lucky Day by Keiko Kasza. I don’t know if I’m saying that right; and it’s another one where she sets it up so well, and then when you get to the end, you’re like that makes sense, but that is not what I was expecting was going to happen at all. In fact, even who you think the main character is turns out not to be the main character. Which I think is funny. So the surprise that goes with the humor, I think elevates it.

Cat:
Yes, I agree. I second that. So my next question is: The humor in your books…is the humor in your books organic when you draft? Or do you edit it in or is it some combo of both?

Sudipta:
I think one it depends on what type of book, right? So let’s separate out picture books from early readers and chapter books. So with the picture book, since the concept is so directly tied to the joke, it often comes first, right? I will think of either what the punchline will be or the, the wordplay that is, that is funny. That, that ties into a character. Like when I, when I write a character called Hampire. That’s a vampire pig, like the joke is right there, right? It’s, it’s, it’s funny. It’s ridiculous in the beginning. So with a picture book, I think it often starts before you start drafting.

With chapter books and with readers where you were able to put in more layers, there might be some aspects of it that, that you kind of start with, because you know that it is intrinsically funny, but then you are going to layer in more jokes. And you know, like I would say: If, if picture books are like, you know, a dad joke, right? Chapter books are more like stand up comedy, right? You have more time to build. You have more of a rhythm to play with. Timing is much more of a a thing; that it isn’t just the words that are funny, right? It’s the timing and how you lay it out in the chapter book or in a reader that adds to the humor. Whereas the picture book is almost just a, you know. It’s just, it’s just there, right? It is, you know, and so many picture books are based on Dad jokes that you know. I’ve always recommend to people. Go out and read and learn those dad jokes. Is actually something we’ll cover next week. A whole little section about Dad jokes.

Cat:
That’s so cool that you said that like, like because in general picture books are, are shorter and so like the Dad joke is like more of a flat, like it’s like an “in your face” joke as opposed to stand up where you have to really invest your time to see, like you know sort of peel back the onion and figure out where the joke is and how it lands and if it’s going to hit you or not. Oh, I love that description. That’s so cool.

Sudipta:
Yeah. And like a good comedian, they will, they’ll keep repeating a motif, right? They will say something in the beginning and then it might even feel like a throwaway line. But then it comes back at the end and that’s how I was tying up and that’s really how you would structure a chapter book as well, so. I think that there’s a lot of things you can learn just from, from good writing, right? I mean, successful comedians are good writers. And so looking at the way that they’re creating something that the reader or the listener is gonna find satisfying, it’s always going to help you become a better writer by kind of taking those tips in from other people who are successful at it.

Cat:
I love that, and on the topic of picture books versus early readers and chapter books? My next question is: you’re going to talk about the differences and similarities between humor in PBs and early reader, chapter books. Which I obviously can’t wait. Is there one you prefer to write over the other? Or are you a fan of both media?

Sudipta:
Say I feel like that’s like asking which one is my favorite child. Obvioulsy my favorite child is Roxy because she loves me the most, right? So it’s it, you know, nobody feels bad about it at the end. She’s the only dog. I think that it’s hard to answer that. I think I love them in different ways, right? I do think when you create this picture book where the concept and the story and just everything about it is just so unified, right? Like you’ve just created something that is, is it’s, it’s just a it’s it’s a magnum opus, right? Like, I mean it just WORKS and there’s a satisfaction in that whereas when you’re writing something longer, you do get to build on it, and you do have chances for those kind of side funny things that are maybe not the main joke but that definitely add to the overall experience. For example, in one of my Purrmaids books, it’s a Halloween-themed book and at the end obviously the Purrmaids get all this candy. But it’s not human candy because they’re Purmaids and they’re underwater. So it’s things like they don’t have peanut butter cups, they have seanut butter cups and they don’t have Butterfingers, they have butterfly fish fingers, I think, which actually sounds not so much like a chocolate, now that I think about it, right?. So but like these are they’re, they’re not necessary. You can do a whole book about that, right? But they’re this extra little bit, that just makes it funny.

Or in the Christmas Purrmaids book, they’re all, they’re all wearing ugly Christmas sweaters, but they have underwater or they have Purrmaids puns on them. So like you know, meet me under the mistleTOAD because that’s amarine creature, right? So so things like that. “Meowy and bright” instead of “merry and bright” because it’s a cat. So these are things you wouldn’t build a whole book, you wouldn’t build a whole around; you don’t have those opportunities in a picture book necessarily, to have those extra little bits.

Cat:
I love that. Oh my God, so excited for this class because I feel like humor is not something that I tend to really fall into. So I just can’t wait to learn with you. And read more and hear your suggestions and…Yeah, I mean, that’s pretty much all I have. Do you wanna do you wanna add anything? Yes.

Sudipta:
One thing. I think that it’s important to remember that you don’t have to be funny to write a, a good picture book that kids are going to respond to, right? There are plenty of people who write serious things that aren’t funny. And if you feel like humor isn’t your thing, that’s totally fine. However, I think that even when you’re tackling a serious topic,having a little bit of levity can really help get the message through. I always when I go to schools and I talk to kids, I try to make them laugh a lot because I feel like right after they laugh, their ears are open, right? And they’re ready to hear the more serious thing that I want to tell them. So it gets some of that energy out and lets them have a release and it makes them more receptive. So that’s why I feel like learning to infuse a little bit of humor, even in the more serious things that you might want to write, it just kind of gives you a chance to connect with your audience on a, on a deeper level and in a different way so that the message that you’re giving them isn’t just hitting them in one way. You’re kind of bringing it to them in a multiple different ways and we all know from learning, right? We don’t all learn in the same ways and you know there are definitely things when you set something to music, right? A lot of us are able to remember things that were set to music a lot better than if we’re just reading it and reciting it because the music adds this new level. So think of humor in your writing as that. It doesn’t have to be all of it, but it can be an enhancement that helps the experience.

Cat:
Love that. So we really invite anyone who’s curious, who may be writing, who’s thinking about writing, too scared to write it. We invite everyone to come because it is a two-ight mini. It’s not too in-depth, but enough that you get sampling of how to do it and maybe try it in your next piece of work.

Sudipta:
I would like to say that I think it’s hilarious because I put a lot of jokes are there that are just laugh out loud funny. So, you know, come for the jokes. Leave with the knowledge, right?

Cat:
Come for the jokes and leave with the knowledge, I love that. So if you’d like to learn from Sudipta, please make sure to join her at Giggles and Laughs, Connecting with Humor in Picture Books, Early Readers, and Chapter Books coming up on March 18th and 20th, which is next week. You can register on our website at highlightsfoundation.org and lastly you can purchase Sudipta’s books–and especially those Purrmaid books that I love at our virtual bookshop, powered by bookshop.org.

Thank you for joining us today and can’t wait to see you online.

Sudipta:
Thank you, Cat, and I can’t wait to see you and we promise Cat and I both promise we will be on our best behavior while we are on camera.

Cat:
Scout’s honor.

Sudipta:
I’m really looking forward to seeing all of you next week. Thank you very much. Bye everyone.

Cat:
Thank you for joining us. Bye.