Entry #6 - The Healing Powers of Humor & Wit

I am a big advocate for adventure, mystery, or humor books and especially, for young adult readers. Adolescents enjoy books with adventure, survival, mystery, suspense, and humor because they can see themselves in these exciting and new situations portrayed in the book, these books provide vicarious experiences, a sense of enjoyment, or allow adolescents to escape their everyday lives (Hinton and Bucher 179). I would use After Ever After by Jordan Sonnenblick as one opportunity to teach this genre because the themes that run throughout are real-life issues that students face presented in a humorous way.

After Ever After is about an eighth-grade boy, Jeff, who has just reached his fifth year of being cancer free. He was diagnosed with leukemia when he was five and went through intensive treatment. His best friend, Tad, is also an eighth grader and survivor of cancer. This book tells the tale of these two boys while they deal with every day adolescent issues and then, some with many doses of wit and humor. “Laughter can be a positive force…when it brings hope for the future and helps characters overcome fears and adversity” (Bucher and Hinton 176). After Ever After truly embraces the idea of laughter being healing. In one particular scene where Jeff is feeling guilty and responsible for his cancer ruining all his loved one's lives, the guidance counselor uses humor to remind Jeff that he didn't ask for cancer and that it wasn't his fault (Sonnenblick 207). In another scene, Jeff struggles with his brother being unreachable in Africa. Steve, his brother, has always been his confidant and he needs some advise on his new girlfriend. He talks about who his other choices are and makes a witty comment about how his dad, the accountant, would suggest creating a mathematical equation to explain love (137). “Humor can also allow readers to look at social problems and cultural differences because it lowers barriers to discuss while revealing problems and issues in a new light” (Bucher and Hinton 176). After Ever After provides the reader with the opportunity to look at cancer, family dynamics, as well as social and academic struggles in a humorous, new light. Both Tad and Jeff suffer from nerve damage as a result of their cancer treatments (Sonnenblick 7). Tad is in a wheelchair and Jeff has a limp. Both boys have accommodations, such as typing (16). This makes fitting in academically and socially very difficult, yet these issues are handled with large amounts of humor thrown in to lighten the mood. For these reasons, After Ever After is a good fit for teaching the genre of young adult humor.

In the classroom, I would use this book to teach about the young adult humor genre. We would talk about why After Ever After is a good fit for this genre. It could provoke great conversations about why humor is important and how humor can be used in productive, healthy ways. In order to tie in the arts, students could create skits or comic strips that center around using humor about “real” problems or challenges. In the novel, fatal illness, death, and complex relationships (family, friendships, and even, romantic) are all dealt with in humorous ways. Students could create small dramatic skits or comic strips as a way to demonstrate using humor to approach these ideas. The teacher could also encourage students to come up with their own “real” problems (either personal or on a larger global scale) to use in their art forms. The final products could then, be either performed or shared with the class as a way to continue the tough conversations.

With all of this in mind, it is clear that After Ever After is great fit for allowing teachers access to teaching young adult humor. This genre really appeals to reluctant readers and the humor helps breakdown or lower barriers, making tough conversations and real-life themes presented in the text easier to approach (Bucher and Hinton 176).

Works Cited

Bucher, Katherine and KaoVonia Hinton. Young Adult Literature: Exploration, Evaluation and       Appreciation. 3^rd ed. Boston: Pearson, 2014. Print.

Sonnenblick, Jordan. After Ever After. New York: Scholastic, 2010. Electronic.