humor lit suggestions? and poetry

[SilverMoon]

I'm trying to round out my lit plans for the year and I'm falling short in the humor and poetry. I'd love some fresh ideas. 🙂 The kids are a junior and a senior, who aren't big readers but will dutifully work through anything I assign.  It's the last year of lit with mom for both of them (big sad!) and we already have a plan with more serious works (gothic, dystopian, sci-fi, a Shakespeare, etc).  

Anything else you just wouldn't want to miss with your last chance? ❤️

[Kassia]

My daughter enjoyed James Thurber's, My Life and Hard Times, and also The Importance of Being Earnest (Wilde).  

[daijobu]

This is a weird suggestion, but Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother had us rolling on the floor.  I think my kids especially enjoyed the idea of parents who are trying to figure things out and don't have all the answers.  Also, it's wicked funny.  

[Lori D.]

Humor
- Life With Jeeves -- or other novel or short stories by P.G. Wodehouse
- My Family and Other Animals (Durrell) -- memoir, with humor
- The Importance of Being Earnest (Wilde) -- comic play
- "The Catbird's Seat" (Thurber) -- short story, dark humor twist at the end -- we all really enjoyed this one
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Adams) -- highly funny in a sci-fi setting
- Farmer Giles of Ham (Tolkien) -- mock epic, Medieval setting; long short story/short novella
- Picture Miss Seeton (Carvic) -- mystery written/set in the late 1960s in the UK -- it might be fun to include a mystery in your variety pack of genres 😉 ; not a traditional or classic work, but the writing and vocabulary is several steps above the usual mystery, and it is extremely amusing; [this is the first of 5 books Heron Carvic wrote about this character; other authors continued the series -- but did it poorly]


Poetry... hard to help there. My DSs really did not care for poetry, so I just inserted the a short unit of poetry about 2x/year each year of high school, and shot for poems that I thought might be "less painful" for them, lol. A few that I can recall off the top of my head:

- "The Raven" (Poe) -- the one poem DSs were really enthusiastic about, lol
- "Darkness" (Byron) -- yikes, dark dystopia! 😄
- "Because I Could Not Stop For Death" (Dickinson)
- "Tell All the Truth But Tell It Slant" (Dickinson)
- "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (Coleridge)
- "I Wondered Lonely as a Cloud" (Wordsworth) + the Bullwinkle parody
- "The Village Blacksmith" (Longfellow) + the Bullwinkle parody
- "The Tyger" (Blake) + the Calvin & Hobbes comic
- "Convergence of the Twain" (Hardy)
- "Old Ironsides" (Holmes) -- we did this one for the historical aspect that his poem helped save the ship, which was "floating history", and still exists today because of this poem
- Opposites (Wilbur) -- short book of fun riddle poems in rhyme
- parody poems by Lewis Carroll in the Alice books (and compared to the original poems); we used the annotations from the Martin Gardiner Annotated Alice


Last year, I did a quick lesson for my co-op class covering the 3 poems below. All 3 were excerpted as part of epigrams at the start of chapters out of Watership Down (which was the book we were covering). All three poems somewhat touch on the same topic (death), but each makes very different connections, and each has a very different emotional content and purpose:

1. “Who's in the Next Room?” by Thomas Hardy (1870s?) last stanza used as the epigraph in chap. 19 (part 2, Watership Down)
Rhymed, in 5-line stanzas. Structured as a conversation between a questioner (first 4 lines of each stanza) and an answerer (last line of each stanza), this is a type of riddle poem, as it works to answer the question in the title: “Who’s in next room?”

2. “Prospice” by Robert Browning (1864) lines 5-8 used as the epigraph in chap. 31 (part 3, Watership Down)
Rhymed, single stanza poem of 28 lines. A lyrical poem is one in which the poet expresses feelings. This lyrical poem begins with a description of emotions on the topic, and ends with a choice.

3. “The Witnesses” by W.H. Auden (1932) stanzas 6-7 used as the epigraph in chap. 17 (part 1, Watership Down)
Rhymed, in 6-line stanzas. A “character” poem is one which is spoken in the voice of a specific character. Here, it is the character of the Greek furies (the “witnesses”, the “hooded women”, the “humpbacked surgeons”), whose job is to overlook nothing, forgive nothing, and exact revenge for all wrongs.


Other ideas:
- Carver (Nelson) -- YA book of free verse poems sketching the life of George Washington Carver; Marilyn Nelson is a contemporary poet (I met her!)
- A Thousand Vessels (Runyan) -- almost a fiction feel; "collection of poems in which the ancient and modern worlds collide... reveal[ing] the common and complex experiences of women across the ages"

[Lori D.]

2 hours ago, SilverMoon said:

Anything else you just wouldn't want to miss with your last chance? ❤️

A few "last chance" done all together with DSs (I think you'll see a theme, lol):
- Descent into Hell (Charles Williams)
- The Golden Key (George MacDonald)
- Leaf By Niggle (JRR Tolkien)
- Smith of Wooton Major (JRR Tolkien)
- the space trilogy (CS Lewis)

[daijobu]

Another comedic play is Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw:

"If a man is indolent, let him be poor. If he is drunken, let him be poor. If he is not a gentleman, let him be poor. If he is addicted to the fine arts or to pure science instead of to trade and finance, let him be poor. If he chooses to spend his wages on his beer and his family instead of saving it up for his old age, let him be poor. Let nothing be done for "the undeserving": let him be poor. Serve him right! Also -- somewhat inconsistently blessed are the poor!"

[frogger]

Well, you have to have a certain taste to love them but Patrick McManus is hilarious. A Fine and Plesant Misery or Never Sniff a Gift Fish or They Shoot Canoes are some of our favorites. We still read them aloud as a family on camping trips and we are often in stitches. His word choice is fantastic. 

Either you get them or you don't. 

[SilverMoon]

 

22 hours ago, Kassia said:

My daughter enjoyed James Thurber's, My Life and Hard Times, and also The Importance of Being Earnest (Wilde).  

I fluffy purple heart love The Importance of Being Earnest. 💜 Thurber looks like a win!

21 hours ago, daijobu said:

This is a weird suggestion, but Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother had us rolling on the floor.  I think my kids especially enjoyed the idea of parents who are trying to figure things out and don't have all the answers.  Also, it's wicked funny.  

I never would have thought of something like this, but I think they'd get a kick out of it. 

20 hours ago, Lori D. said:

A few "last chance" done all together with DSs (I think you'll see a theme, lol):
- Descent into Hell (Charles Williams)
- The Golden Key (George MacDonald)
- Leaf By Niggle (JRR Tolkien)
- Smith of Wooton Major (JRR Tolkien)
- the space trilogy (CS Lewis)

Your lists are always delicious! I have Space Trilogy on the list and maybe some Inkling rabbit trails. It feels wrong to not have at least one of them in there somewhere. 🤷‍♀️😄 The big guy is going to love The Tyger/Calvin connection. 

16 hours ago, daijobu said:

Another comedic play is Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw:

"If a man is indolent, let him be poor. If he is drunken, let him be poor. If he is not a gentleman, let him be poor. If he is addicted to the fine arts or to pure science instead of to trade and finance, let him be poor. If he chooses to spend his wages on his beer and his family instead of saving it up for his old age, let him be poor. Let nothing be done for "the undeserving": let him be poor. Serve him right! Also -- somewhat inconsistently blessed are the poor!"

This sounds highly entertaining! I found a b/w movie on YouTube to go with it. 

13 hours ago, frogger said:

Well, you have to have a certain taste to love them but Patrick McManus is hilarious. A Fine and Plesant Misery or Never Sniff a Gift Fish or They Shoot Canoes are some of our favorites. We still read them aloud as a family on camping trips and we are often in stitches. His word choice is fantastic. 

Either you get them or you don't. 

This sounds right up the Boy Scout's alley. ♥

 

 

Thank you! Notes have been taken and I can't wait for the next Amazon delivery. 😄

[ScoutTN]

Seconding McManus and Wodehouse! 

We are enjoying The Daily Poem podcast. A few minutes each day, varied selections, not too much teaching/background, and we can listen together.

[BakersDozen]

A favorite with my students/kids is Mark Twain's "Diaries of Adam and Eve". So, so funny!

[Junie]

For humor, I highly recommend O. Henry.

 

 

 

[Lori D.]

16 hours ago, Junie said:

For humor, I highly recommend O. Henry.

How could I have forgotten him?! 😄

Short stories are a great, fast way to add some humor. Other humorous short stories:

DSs and I really enjoyed "The Ransom of Red Chief" (O. Henry), but also the black humor of "A Harlem Tragedy" (O. Henry) -- this one also opened the door for discussing how humor can defuse a charged and difficult topic (in this case, domestic abuse), and allow you to actually talk about it.

That also reminds me of the irony that produces humor in the short story "The Open Window" (Saki). -- The meanings of the character names adds to the humor (Nuttel = Nut, as in a nutcase, and Vera = truth 😉 )

Bride Comes to Yellow Sky (Crane) -- humor and pathos, blended.

[daijobu]

Billy Collins was US poet laureate and winner of the Mark Twain Prize for Humor in Poetry.  This is of course a favorite:  

 

The Lanyard

BY BILLY COLLINS

The other day I was ricocheting slowly

off the blue walls of this room,

moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,

from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,

when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary

where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

 

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist

could send one into the past more suddenly—

a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp

by a deep Adirondack lake

learning how to braid long thin plastic strips

into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

 

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard

or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,

but that did not keep me from crossing

strand over strand again and again

until I had made a boxy

red and white lanyard for my mother.

 

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,

and I gave her a lanyard.

She nursed me in many a sick room,

lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,

laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,

and then led me out into the airy light

 

and taught me to walk and swim,

and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.

Here are thousands of meals, she said,

and here is clothing and a good education.

And here is your lanyard, I replied,

which I made with a little help from a counselor.

 

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,

strong legs, bones and teeth,

and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,

and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.

And here, I wish to say to her now,

is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

 

that you can never repay your mother,

but the rueful admission that when she took

the two-tone lanyard from my hand,

I was as sure as a boy could be

that this useless, worthless thing I wove

out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

 

 

[Kareni]

I'll recommend  The Mouse That Roared  by Leonard Wibberley; you might read the book and then watch the movie.

Regards,

Kareni

[NewIma]

For humor I echo others with P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster series, My Family and Other Animals by Durrell, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Adams!

[Alicia64]

I think you have enough awesome suggestions for a few years here! 🙂 But I wanted to suggest Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.

I love this list!!

W.

[Emerald Stoker]

A few funny books/stories my teens enjoyed (some of these have some coarse language--we don't care, but you might):

Essay collections by David Sedaris, AJ Jacobs, David Foster Wallace, David Rakoff, Fran Lebowitz, Sloane Crosley.

William Bowman, The Ascent of Rum Doodle. (Everyone should read this book!)

Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm.

Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield. (Hilarious.)

Addison and Steele, Selections from the Tatler and the Spectator.

All of Jane Austen!

Roddy Doyle, The Commitments.

Jerome K Jerome, Three Men in a Boat; Three Men on the Bummel.

Evelyn Waugh, Scoop; The Loved One.

Nikolai Gogol, "The Nose,"

EF Benson, Lucia books.

Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader.

Mordecai Richler, Solomon Gursky was Here.

Saki (HH Munro), Collected Stories.

ETA a couple more ideas suggested by the kids:

Sue Townsend, Adrian Mole books

Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens

 

 

 

Edited October 7, 2020 by Emerald Stoker