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    Out of the Mouths of Babes...: Children say the funniest things
    Out of the Mouths of Babes...: Children say the funniest things
    Out of the Mouths of Babes...: Children say the funniest things
    Ebook290 pages1 hour

    Out of the Mouths of Babes...: Children say the funniest things

    By Shelley Klein

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    You have to hand it to children. They do have a wonderfully straightforward view of the world, and a way with words that manages to make day-to-day life much more fun. In Out of the Mouths of Babes you'll find a fantastic selection of the side-splitting bloopers, hiccups, innocent misunderstandings and downright funny things that kids have come out with. For example: • Kids on love: 'If falling in love is anything like learning how to spell, I don't want to do it. It takes too long.' • Kids on music: 'Handel was half German, half Italian and half English.' • Kids on religion: 'St Paul cavorted to Christianity.' Out of the Mouths of Babes is a charming celebration of the unique, quirky - and usually entirely unintentional - humour of children everywhere, for adults who enjoy seeing the funnier side of life.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMichael O'Mara
    Release dateFeb 18, 2011
    ISBN9781843176381
    Out of the Mouths of Babes...: Children say the funniest things
    Author

    Shelley Klein

    Shelley Klein is a freelance editor, compiler and writer. Her works for Michael O'Mara Books include The Wicked Wit of Charles Dickens, Cockney Rhyming Slang, Out of the Mouths of Babes, as well as the bestselling The Book of Senior Moments and its follow up The Little Book of Senior Moments.

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    3.5/5

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    • 4/5
      Very funny....The humor of kids never ceases to amaze me.

    Book preview

    Out of the Mouths of Babes... - Shelley Klein

    OUT OF

    THE MOUTHS

    OF BABES

    Shelley Klein

    Michael O’Mara Books Limited

    Copyright Information

    First published in Great Britain in 2010 by

    Michael O’Mara Books Limited

    16 Lion Yard

    Tremadoc Road

    London SW4 7NQ

    This electronic edition published in 2011

    ISBN: 978-1-84317-638-1 in EPub format

    ISBN: 978-1-84317-639-8 in Mobipocket format

    ISBN: 978-1-84317-480-6 in paperback print format

    Copyright © Michael O’Mara Books Limited 2010

    Every reasonable effort has been made to acknowledge all copyright holders.

    Any errors or omissions that may have occurred are inadvertent, and anyone with any copyright queries is invited to write to the publishers, so that a full acknowledgement may be included in subsequent editions of this work.

    All rights reserved. You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

    A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

    Cover design by Patrick Knowles

    Text design and typesetting by Design 23

    Illustrations courtesy of Jeannie Belle Davies (aged five and a half), Frankie Dixon (aged nine) and Shante Bennett (aged six).

    www.mombooks.com

    Contents

    Acknowledgements

    Introduction

    Off to School

    Love Is . . .

    Family Matters

    Jesus Loves the Little Children

    Pets’ Corner

    The Birds and the Bees

    Dear Santa

    The World According to Kids

    Stop Playing with Your Food

    A Child’s Eye View

    When I Grow Up

    Bibliography

    ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

    A huge thank you to Gillian and Zoe Condon and to several friends and their respective children without whose help this book would have been all the more difficult. I am also extremely grateful to various friends and acquaintances who sent me the funny things their own darling children have said to them over the years, as well as the teachers who kindly took the time to ask their pupils a serious of daft-sounding questions for me. In addition I would like to credit all the wonderful publications and websites, too numerous to cite here but listed at the back of the book, which provided me with such a wealth of material as I researched this book.

    INTRODUCTION

    To see the world from a child’s eye view is to see the world afresh. Nothing can prepare you for the funny, strange, charming – if slightly skewed – opinions and insights of those little people commonly known as children. If only we could all be as imaginative and (unintentionally) witty. But we can’t, and therein lies the charm of listening to those who are younger, and less well versed in the ways of the world, than us. After all who but a child would say, with some certainty, that God lives in a big coconut? Or would say that when they grow up they want to be a ‘dinosaur doctor’?

    When asked to identify the worst thing about being a child, Henry, aged five (and a half), piped up, ‘Mum keeps sticking me in the bath. I mean, I only have to look at a worm or a puddle and next second I’m in the bath.’ Poor Henry! Life’s tough when you’re small: there are so many demands on you and so much stuff to work out about the world. Indeed, some of the best jokes and anecdotes in this collection are on this subject alone. But getting things slightly muddled or completely wrong is one of the prerogatives, if not the charm, of childhood. Take the following exchange between the presenter Art Linkletter and a young guest on his show:

    Kid: My father’s a nurseryman and raises flowers.

    Linkletter: What sort?

    Kid: Algerians.

    Linkletter: Algerians?

    Kid: Yes, red ones, white ones, pink ones.

    Linkletter: Don’t you mean geraniums?

    Kid: Yes, Algerians.

    Linkletter interviewed thousands of children for his then ground-breaking US radio and TV show Party House, excerpts of which were anthologized in a book called Kids Say the Darndest Things. Later the wonderful and extremely funny Bill Cosby took over Linkletter’s mantel by interviewing an equal number of children for his TV series Kids Say the Darndest Things, which in turn inspired Kids Say the Funniest Things in the UK, hosted by Michael Barrymore. I am deeply indebted to all of these shows and their respective books, as well as to several wonderful stories which first appeared in Little Gems, Babes and Sucklings, Pass the Port and the subsequent volume Pass the Port Again, as well as quotes and letters from children from numerous publications, including the wonderful books Butterfly Kisses, Dear God, What Religion Were the Dinosaurs?, Children’s Letters to God and Children’s Letters to Santa Claus.

    That there are so many examples of those unpredictable and unintentionally hilarious things children say to be found out there only goes to prove how refreshing and amusing our little treasures can be (apart, of course, from when they’re your own little treasure and behaving like a little monster). Indeed I would be so bold as to say that seeing things from a child’s point of view is one of the most thought-provoking things you can do. Logic is turned on its head, the norm is no longer normal: when a friend’s child was asked what her favourite colour was, the answer came back ‘rainbow’. What a wonderful answer – one that very few (if any) grown-ups would have thought of, but that makes absolute sense. This book is crammed with similar – strangely wise – little jewels, so, whether quoted straight from the mouths of our children, or told in the form of jokes and stories, if you are in need of a good chuckle or a new way of seeing the world, you really could do no better than pick up a copy of Out of the Mouths of Babes and let yourself be thoroughly entertained.

    Shelley Klein, 2010

    OFF TO SCHOOL

    It can be a heart-wrenching day sending your beloved child off for their first day at school; resplendent in their oversized uniform (they’ll grow into it soon enough), clutching their packed lunch in excited expectation and, of course, blissfully unaware of their parents’ worries as they skip off to make new friends and learn new things. Some of the best anecdotes and most hilarious quotes in this collection have come from teachers, parents and school kids; the classroom and the playground are, after all, where kids’ imaginations are given free reign, with often very funny and touching results.

    SWIMMING CERTIFICATE

    Three-year-old Charlotte was in raptures after being given a certificate of achievement in her swimming lesson. When her father came home from work that evening, Charlotte’s mother proudly handed him the award.

    ‘Charlotte, are you going to tell Daddy what this is?’ she prompted.

    ‘Daddy,’ she said, beaming with pride, ‘this is my terrificate!’

    PLAYING GAMES

    A father had taken his son Ben to the dentist one morning before dropping him off at school. When they arrived at the school office to sign him in, they overheard one of the secretaries talking to the headmaster about two girls who had been caught ‘playing hooky’. Ben immediately turned to his Dad. ‘Dad, Dad,’ he whispered, ‘how do you play hooky? It sounds like a fun game!’

    SHORT AND TO THE POINT

    This charming story within a story is related in the collection Pass the Port. One day a teacher asked the class to write a story containing the following four elements: romance, mystery, royalty and religion. One little boy, who clearly understood the beauty of brevity, got the job done in thirty seconds. On being asked by his teacher to share his creation with the rest of the class, he promptly read out:

    ‘God!

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