All well and good, but it’s not like everyone’s gifted enough to turn their tragical tragedies into comic gold. It may not be a work of grit and suffering, but it’s fun and that, to my mind, is worth all the hoity-toity awards in the world. So hats off to Stand Up, Yumi Chung! Sure it’s a funny story couched in a meaningful one, but for what it’s saying and how it says it, I award it a great big rubber chicken. And, most importantly, show them that women can be just as hilarious as guys. Give them an alternative to the deadly serious fare that’s out there. You know what they’ll do instead? Make kids laugh. You might find one or two written for 9-12 year olds in a given season, but they’re probably not going to attract much literary cred. This is why funny books written by women are such unicorns in the publishing world. Humorists have a purpose on this planet, but you’re not going to win a Nobel or a Pulitzer or even an Oscar most of the time for making someone laugh. And being funny, quite frankly, isn’t something that tends to make the cut. Living as we do in an age when every other book published is an inspiring group biography, our children are currently steeped in the very serious nature of what makes a woman great. Kokila (an imprint of Penguin Random House)
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