Ha! Ha! Ha!: 1,000+ Jokes, Riddles, Facts, and More

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Essentially a book of humor, Ha! Ha! Ha! will find its principal
audience among those who are still amused by “Knock! Knock!” jokes
and wordplay riddles such as, “How do you make a baby sleep on a space
ship? You rocket.” What sets Thomas’s work apart from other joke and
riddle books for kids is its organization, plus its inclusion of fact
boxes and various forms of cognitive challenges. Most pairs of facing
pages are organized about a joke or riddle theme (e.g., “School
Daze,” “Horsing Around”), and include black-and-white
cartoon-style illustrations and a fact box. For instance, “School
Daze” explains how erasers work, while two computer-related puzzle
pages have a fact box which provides the surprising origin of the term
“computer bug.” As a break from jokes and riddles, Thomas offers
more challenging activities including picture and word puzzles, computer
“smilies” and Internet abbreviations, brain bogglers, optical
illusions, and visual games, with the correct answers always appearing
somewhere on the same pages. An obvious individual purchase, Ha! Ha! Ha!
also has a place in school and public libraries where its easy-reading
contents will especially appeal to reluctant readers. Recommended.