ABSTRACT
Packed into the assertions of these critics is the essence of the subject matter of my argument. Humorous books for junior readers are often ignored by the critical community, due, in part, to what Milner Davis describes as a “conventional bias against comic genres” (1996: 101), and I consider this a serious oversight within the fi eld of children’s literature. I wholeheartedly agree with Scutter who suggests that “some of the most powerful meanings of all lie in the assumptions about power and ideology embedded in much-read but littleanalysed and -awarded humorous texts” (1995, in James, 2004: 369). Junior readers (7-11 years of age) are vital to consider as many children of this age are now mostly past the stage of simply ‘decoding’ texts and are considered increasingly capable of standing back from language and refl ecting on how texts work (Buckingham, 1993). According to theorists such as Levine (1980) and Buckingham (1993), junior readers are actively acquiring skills that are necessary for the comprehension and appreciation of more complex, higher forms of humor such as satire, irony, and parody, and-although it is now widely recognized that young children have a certain degree of natural cognitive ability-humor itself, as James puts it, is a “learned response” (2004: 368), which is infl uenced by, among other things, adult opinion, social environment and education.
