New Zealand author Margaret Mahy has made a career of tickling funny bones, teasing the imagination, and sending shivers up spines of young readers. She is, according to Betty Gilderdale, writing in St. James Guide to Children's Writers, "one of the most...

When James Welch died, the matter of his passing was discussed in an inadvertently comic mode in Missoula at the gym where I used to work out in the mornings. A small coffee and juice bar served as an informal gathering spot to glance...

I Karamojong oral tradition provides several trickster characters such as the rabbit, the self-appointed moral guard. This rabbit pretends to defend the weak and die powerless, yet secretly steals from them, but in the end gets exposed for what it really is. Then...

Two girls scrambled to the door when they spotted reporters lingering in the hallway. One shrieked, "So they can just stand here and listen to everything?" The department intern, guarding the entrance with her trusty V.I.P. student list, shooed reporters away from the door. Word...