Why Funny Books Help Kids Talk About Big Feelings

Funny picture books don’t avoid big feelings. Sometimes, they make those feelings safe enough to approach.

Because the truth is, there are few things more suspicious to a child than an adult who is clearly trying to teach them something. Children can smell a lesson coming from across the room.

You may think you are being subtle. You may think the gentle voice and carefully chosen book and meaningful pause are working beautifully. Meanwhile, the child is thinking, Ah. I see we have entered a feelings trap.

And honestly? Fair.

Because adults do this a lot. We take something tender and immediately try to make it useful. We want the book to help with grief or jealousy or fear or anger or being left out or learning to share or not licking public surfaces.

Noble goals, all of them.

Especially the licking one.

And books can help. A good picture book can give a child language for something they have felt but not yet named. It can offer comfort, perspective, courage, relief, recognition. It can make a feeling less lonely.

But I think funny books can do something especially powerful.

They can lower the drawbridge.

A child may not be ready to say, “I feel ashamed when I make mistakes.” They may, however, be extremely ready to laugh at a character who makes a mistake, tries to fix it in the worst possible way, accidentally creates a larger problem, and then has to stand there in the emotional wreckage holding one shoe and a suspicious amount of pudding.

That kind of story gives children room. Room to laugh first. Room to recognize themselves second. Room to talk later, maybe, when no one is staring directly at them with concerned eyebrows.

Big feelings can make children feel exposed. Adults sometimes forget that. We are so busy trying to help children express themselves that we forget expression requires safety. And for many kids, humor makes things safer.

Humor says, “We are not in trouble here.”

Humor says, “This feeling is real, and also we can breathe.”

Humor says, “You are not the only person who has ever felt this ridiculous and enormous at the same time.”

That is why funny picture books can reach places a very earnest book may not. Not because earnest books are bad. I love many of them. I have read them, recommended them, cried over them, and occasionally had to look away dramatically because a picture book decided to emotionally body-slam me before 9 a.m.

But children do not always need the adult world to approach their feelings with a clipboard.

Sometimes they need a story that lets the feeling wear a fake mustache.

A child who is anxious may not want to discuss anxiety. They may want to read about a character preparing for every possible disaster, including seventeen that are not physically possible.

A child who feels left out may not want a direct conversation about belonging. They may want a story about someone who tries to join a group by becoming aggressively good at something no one asked them to do.

A child who is angry may not want to practice a calming strategy while actively furious, which, frankly, relatable. They may want to watch a character stomp, roar, misunderstand, overreact, and eventually discover that underneath the roar was something softer.

Funny stories give kids a little distance from the feeling. Not so much distance that the feeling disappears. Just enough distance to look at it.

When a child laughs at a character’s jealousy, fear, embarrassment, bossiness, stubbornness, or need to be deeply correct about something very small, they may also be practicing emotional flexibility. They are noticing that a feeling can be intense without being permanent. They are noticing that a mistake can be funny and still matter. They are noticing that a character can be wrong, messy, dramatic, confused, and still lovable.

That last one feels important.

Children spend a lot of time trying to figure out what parts of themselves are acceptable. They notice when sadness is welcome but anger is not. They notice when bravery is praised but fear gets hurried along. They notice when being easy is treated like being good.

Funny books can push back on that a little. They can make room for the child who is not easy. The child who wants too much. The child who feels everything in capital letters. The child who overthinks, overreacts, over-plans, over-cries, over-explains, or has very firm opinions about sock seams.

The child who is still learning that feelings are information, not identity.

And when those children see a character like them inside a funny story, something beautiful can happen. They get to feel seen without feeling studied. They get to feel understood without feeling corrected. They get to laugh at something that maybe felt too tender to touch directly.

That is not small.

As a therapist, I believe in helping children build emotional language. As a writer, I believe the language does not always have to arrive wearing sensible shoes.

Sometimes it arrives through a joke. A page turn. A character making a terrible plan with complete confidence. A tiny disaster. A very serious animal doing a very unserious thing.

Funny books can help children talk about big feelings because they do not demand the conversation at the door. They invite children into the story first. They let delight come in with the difficulty. They give kids something to hold besides the feeling itself.

And then, later, maybe the child says, “I do that too.”

Or maybe they don’t.

Maybe they just ask to read it again.

That counts too.

Carol Ann Isbell is a therapist, children’s author, and parent living in Louisville, Kentucky. She writes stories for kids who feel deeply, wonder hard, and notice more than grown-ups realize.