Abstract
Summary This article surveys research on children's literature and humor by professionals in the field of children's literature. Although the researchers' interests are diverse, they are in at least implicit agreement about two aspects of their research: the early history of humor in children's literature and the kinds of questions that need to be addressed. This chapter, therefore, begins with an overview of pre-twentieth century books which indicates the main lines of development of humor in children's literature. The second half of the cnapter considers the questions and presuppositions that have shaped the study of humor in children's literature to date. Presuppositions about both humor and the nature of the child have often excluded from discussion humor which is thought to be too anarchic, too critical of society, or too revealing of the darker side of human nature, but the best of the research respects the child as an active reader and respects humorous stories as having something to say.
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