My new book, Jamie and the Joke Factory, had its first public outing today, when I went into school to read it to a group of four, five and six-year-olds.

It’s an age group that loves the format and conventions of jokes – all the ‘doctor, doctors’ and the ‘knock, knocks’ etc – but their sense of what a joke actually is, is, to say the least, surreal. At several points, Jamie and the Joke Factory challenges readers to come up with jokes. These were a couple of the highlights from this morning’s session:

‘Knock, knock.’
‘Whose there’
‘Jellyfish’
‘Jellyfish who?’
‘Just a blue one!’

and

‘Why wasn’t the banana peeling very well?’
‘Because he was a banana!’

All good stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree.

I was also slightly taken aback to discover that a joke factory is not something I invented for the purposes of my story. It turns out that one of the boys has actually visited one. I’m pretty sure he said it was in Bromsgrove. You learn something new every day.

Jamie and the Joke Factory, is available to BUY NOW from Amazon, price £6.99.