This Week · Joy

Joy — what's something small that always makes you laugh?

For littler ones: What's the silliest thing that makes you giggle?

Not the big kind of joy this week — the small kind. The word that just sounds funny, the thing that gets you every single time. This week's three are all built to tickle: two are silly old poems and one is the tallest tale in America. An owl and a cat sail off to sea in a pea-green boat with honey and a guitar, and marry by the light of the moon. A gingham dog and a calico cat fall to squabbling at midnight while the clock and the plate look on. And a giant lumberjack pulls a crooked road straight as a string, with his big blue ox leaning into the harness. No moral to chase. Just listen, laugh, and ask the question out loud.

This week's stories

Classics

The Owl and the Pussy-cat

Edward Lear's beloved nonsense song, read just as he wrote it. An owl and a cat sail away in a beautiful pea-green boat, with honey and money and a little guitar — and the owl sings 'O lovely Pussy!' to the stars. They buy a wedding ring off a Piggy-wig, dine on mince and quince with a runcible spoon, and dance hand in hand by the light of the moon. The fun is all in the rolling, made-up words.

American

Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox

America's tallest tale, told the old bunkhouse way — every boast a little bigger than the last. It took five storks to carry baby Paul; his cradle was a boat, and when he rolled over the whole ocean rolled too. He pulls a crooked road straight as a stretched string with his big blue ox, Babe, leaning into the harness, and his footprints become the lakes of the North Country. If it sounds too big to be true, that means it's being told exactly right.

Classics

The Duel

Eugene Field's comic verse about a gingham dog and a calico cat who fall to quarreling one midnight on the table, with bits of gingham and calico flying everywhere. The old Dutch clock hides its face, the Chinese plate wails — and the storyteller keeps swearing he wasn't there, he only heard it from the plate. The sly punchline: come morning, the two had eaten each other up. Pure mischief, not one bit frightening.

Talk about it

What's something small that always makes you laugh — a word, a sound, a face somebody makes? Why that one?
In The Owl and the Pussy-cat, the funniest bits are made-up words like 'runcible spoon' and 'Piggy-wig.' What's the silliest word you can think of?
Paul Bunyan stories get a little taller every time someone tells them. Can you tell me a true thing that happened — and then stretch it bigger and bigger until it's a whopper?

A new question every week.

Listen together in the app — short audio stories for kids 4–10, at bedtime, on the drive, in the drop-off line.

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