Humor Helps the Medicine Go Down

JAMES PATTERSON: Humor Helps the Medicine Go Down

When my son Jack was a kid, my wife Sue and I had a hard time getting him to read. Even though we were giving him books that had been lauded by kids and critics since the day they were published, he couldn’t find a way to connect with the characters, the plot, or the writing.

Admittedly, I was the same when I was a kid. I wasn’t super into books or literature. I didn’t really get into reading until I was in college and had my first job, working as an aide in a psychiatric hospital in Massachusetts. It was called McLean Hospital, and it was one of the top private psychiatric hospitals in the US. I used to work the night shift. Long hours in quiet hallways used to bore me to death, until I started bringing reading material to work with me. I found that I was in a frame of mind to seek literature that spoke to me on a human level, that taught me about the human experience, in a way that countered what I was seeing at the hospital. I needed a balm for the stress of that job.

I firmly believe that one of the best ways to cope with the stress of being alive is through laughter.

I remembered those experiences when my wife and I discussed how to get Jack to read. We realized something that I think is a vital message for all parents: Jack didn’t love to read because he was reading the wrong books. He was reading books that didn’t speak to him in the moment—he was a middle schooler, dealing with friend drama, school drama. The awkwardness of pre-teen life. Middle school is a really tough time in any kid’s life. As adults, we may think back and laugh about the silly things that stressed us out. But in that moment, those things were our lives. A bad grade, a terrible fight with a best friend, a bully poking fun at the way our hair looked.

I firmly believe that one of the best ways to cope with the stress of being alive is through laughter. I think humor is one of the best ways we can relate to each other. Making someone laugh is a great way to make a friend. It’s a way to forget that you’re sad, or mad, or frustrated. Humor gives us the strength to keep moving even when the circumstances feel impossible.

So we started giving Jack funny books about being in middle school. We gave him Roald Dahl, Harriet the Spy, Shel Silverstein, Beverly Cleary. And, to our delight, he loved them. He had finally found books that he connected with, specifically because the humor appealed to him. He was a funny kid; he liked to tell jokes. He liked to make people laugh, and he liked to laugh. And I’m very happy to report that those funny books turned my kid into a lifelong reader.

I’m a firm believer that humor helps the medicine go down.

My experiences getting my son to love books are what motivated me to write my own kids’ books. Many of them are laugh-out-loud funny. And a lot of them deal with some pretty heavy issues. My books deal with tragic circumstances that teach kids valuable lessons— but I always take care to mask them in humor, so kids won’t get turned off by the material. The jokes keep kids reading.

I’m a firm believer that humor helps the medicine go down. That’s why I think being a comedian is one of the hardest jobs on earth. It’s near impossible to teach people important lessons about society and humanity and how we behave using a few pithy comments that end in a punchline. It takes a lot of guts and a lot of smarts—but sometimes that’s the only way to make us learn, by disguising the lesson in something a lot more palatable.

So if you find that you’re having a hard time getting your kids to read, put something funny in front of them. There are plenty of humorous books for middle schoolers that deal with important topics relevant to what kids are experiencing. And in the meantime, I hope you have a good laugh today. Sometimes, a good laugh is all we need to keep us going. •

James Patterson is the world’s bestselling author and most trusted storyteller with one unwavering goal: to turn kids into lifelong readers. jamespatterson.com

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