Jokelopedia: The Biggest, Best, Silliest, Dumbest Joke Book Ever [Illustriert] [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

This is the joke book of your dreams! It's as thick as a phonebook, and crammed full of jokes, knock-knocks, and funny stories. In addition, the book has a mess of silly cartoons, practical jokes, suggestions for would-be comedians, silly songs, and spotlights focusing on comedians, funny shows and so forth.

My kids picked out this book, and they love it. It is very goofy! Heck, they aren't the only ones that liked it; I pored over it, and pulled out wonderful jokes for a future speaking engagement. This is a wonderful book, one my entire family recommends to you!

As third graders start to learn to manipulate language, jokes and puns are great teachers. Plus, nothing beats a good "Nyuk, Nyuk" with your buddies. My son took this with him to theatre camp and the gang enjoyed it during lunch and breaks. He really liked the features on famous funny people like Jim Carey. You may regret hearing the old jokes a million times, but for a good clean laugh, it's a winner.

"If a nut on the wall is a walnut, what is a nut in the bathroom? A pee can."

"Why did the baby cross the road? She was stapled to the chicken."

Billing itself as "the mother of all joke books", The Jokelopedia has the apparent goal of turning your child (or grandchild, etc.) into a comedian. Categorized by subject matter such as a monster jokes, classroom distractions, family funnies, etc., the book contains riddles, jokes, cartoons, and tips from famous comedians. Many of the riddles have pun-ch lines consisting of puns: some that I consider funny, and many of which adults will consider groaners, but will get a lot of giggles from 8 year-olds.

Although I tend to like puns more than the average person, as a practitioner of non-violent communication, I don't recommend giving this book to children. I am concerned that roughly up to 10 to 20% of the laughs come at the expense of becoming desensitized to the suffering of animals and humans. For example, there's a joke about a woman who buys a parrot, and to get the bird to talk, she buys a mirror, a ladder, a bell, etc. She goes back to the store and reports that the parrot died. The clerk expresses his sorrow over her loss and asks if the parrot ever said anything to her. The woman replied that just prior to dying, the parrot said, "Doesn't that store carry any food?" So the joke is that the parrot starved to death because the woman was too stupid to buy food in addition to all the accessories. There are riddles that have punch lines at the expense of animal suffering, for example, "What's black and white and flat? A panda that's been run over." And the tacky frog in a blender joke, mentioned by a previous reviewer, could give a child the idea to actually try this (likely very few children but it's possible). Although much of the egregiously tacky material is in the "Snot funny" section, there is some in other sections of the book.

Another reason I don't recommend the Jokelopedia is because of the practical joke recommendations. The child who tries out these suggestions will probably think he or she is being funny, but those laughs come at the expense of being rude and crude to other people, and insensitive to their feelings. For example, one of their slumber-party jokes is to pour cold water over the shower curtain rod on someone using the shower. Another is to put another child's hand in a glass of warm water to get him or her to wet the bed. Yet another is to put some fake plastic vomit in the sink. One of the elevator practical jokes is to bet the other passengers that you can fit a quarter in your nose. Yuck. Another joke encourages lying: "Tell [your big sister] that one of her friends called (for this to work, be specific--use the real name of someone your sibling is close to and say one of the coolest kids in school is having a party tonight, but you can't remember all the details." In case your budding comedian runs out of practical ideas to play on siblings and parents (yes, a parental practical joke idea involving the kitchen sink sprayer is provided--don't say you weren't warned!), there are five suggestions for tormenting the pizza guy.

One could, as another reviewer did, rip out some of the pages prior to giving the book to a child, or perhaps cross out portions with a thick dark marker like it's a government document. (But if you rip out the page of slumber party practical jokes, the blurb on Lucille Ball is on the other side.) Had I received this book as a child with pages ripped out, I would have been extremely curious about what was missing and sought out another copy! Unless the authors write a new edition that takes out the practical and insensitive to suffering jokes, I don't recommend rewarding them by purchasing this book. That's unfortunate, because I think some of the puns are very clever, and encourage children to have fun with the language.