Best Literacy Jokes Ever!

Reading and writing may be awesome, but telling jokes about reading and writing can lead to silence and awkward coughing. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A literacy joke is risky to tell because most people either don’t care about reading and writing or won’t have enough background information to understand it.  Even if the audience “gets” it, chances are they’ll still think the joke isn’t funny.  You don’t need a master’s degree in English to “get” a Best Literacy Joke Ever!  You might need to read a book every once in a while, though.

WARNING!  Just because a Best Literacy Joke Ever is easy to understand, that doesn’t make it funny.  It’s tough to write (and tell) a Stephen King joke.

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HACK WRITER vs. LITERARY AUTHOR

Stephen King, Janet Evanovich, and James Patterson were hanging out at a coffee shop bragging about how loyal their readers were.

“I could write five novels a year,” Stephen King said, “and my readers would purchase every book, no matter how poorly they were written.”

“Oh yeah?” Janet Evanovich proclaimed.  “I could write ten novels a year, and my loyal readers would purchase every single one of them.”

“That’s nothing,” James Patterson scoffed.  “I could write 15 novels a year, and my loyal readers would spend their money on all of them.”

Tom Wolfe overheard the conversation and became upset.  “You are doing your readers a disservice with your hackery,” he said.  “I took five years to write Back to Blood because I believe in giving my loyal readers my best effort.”

And with that, Tom Wolfe strolled away.

“I hate to say this,” Stephen King said, “but I didn’t think Back to Blood was very good.”

“I hate to say this,” Janet Evanovich said, “but I spend so much time writing all my books that I don’t have time to read anybody else’s writing.”

“I hate to ask this,” James Patterson said quietly, staring at Stephen King and Janet Evanovich, “but you guys actually write all your own books?”

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HOW CAN YOU BEAT WRITER’S BLOCK?

An overworked author was having writer’s block at the worst possible time.  A deadline was approaching from his freelance job, he was working on his 100 blog posts in 100 days challenge, and he was writing a 50,000 word novel in a month all at the same time.  The writer stared at his laptop screen, but he just couldn’t start writing.

Frustrated, the writer stood up and kicked his desk.  Unfortunately, he wasn’t wearing shoes, and he jammed his big toe.

“Aaaaarrrrgh!” the writer screamed, hopping on his good foot from his den to the kitchen to get an ice pack.  He accidentally tripped over his dog, lost his balance, and stumbled against the stove, flipping over a pot of boiling water that scorched his arm.

“Aiyeeeee!” the writer screamed, writhing in agony.  His entire arm seared with pain, so he rushed to his car to drive himself to an emergency room.  As he put the car into reverse, he saw smoke and flames from his kitchen.  He had left the stove on, and somehow the kitchen had caught on fire.

“Nooooooo!” the writer screamed, leaping from his car, diving back into his house,  holding his breath through the suffocating smoke, grabbing a fire extinguisher, and putting out the fire.  As he almost breathed a sigh of relief (he couldn’t really breathe because of the smoke), he heard a loud crash.  He had forgotten to set the emergency brake, and his car had rolled off the driveway and smashed into an old tree that hadn’t been removed yet from his lawn.

“AAAaaaaahhhhhh!” the writer screamed as he fled from his house just as the dying tree fell onto his home and crushed the roof.  The fire had weakened the home’s structure, and entire house collapsed under the weight of the fallen tree.

The writer and his wife (who had been outside in the yard the whole time because she couldn’t stand to be around him when he was writing) stared at the rubble of what had been their home.

“At least now you have something to write about,” the wife said.

“I would,” the writer replied, exasperated.  “But my laptop’s still in the house.”

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ANOTHER WRITER’S BLOCK JOKE

“Write about whatever you want to write about,” the English teacher said to his class as he paced across the room.  “You have 10 minutes to express yourself through your writing, and fill up the entire page.”

“I don’t know what to write about,” a kid said, with a pen in his hand and paper on his desk.

“Write about what you are feeling,” the teacher suggested.  “You have ten minutes.”

“I still don’t know what to write about,” the kid blurted out.

“Think about it quietly for a few minutes, so other students can concentrate while you decide what to write about,” the teacher said.

“I still can’t think of anything to write about,” the kid complained.

“Then just write ‘I don’t know what to write’!” the teacher finally snapped.

The kid scribbled furiously for about ten minutes but at least was quiet.  When the teacher collected the assignment, he praised several students who had written in great detail about their feelings.  When he got to the struggling kid’s assignment, he noticed that the entire page was composed of sentences saying: “I don’t know what to write about.”

The teacher crumpled up the kid’s (kind of) composition and threw it away.  Outraged, the kid shouted, “Why did you throw away my essay?”

“Because you didn’t put any thought into it,” the teacher stated.

“Are you kidding?” the kid retorted.  ‘That’s the first time I’ve ever written a whole page!”

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Watch Dysfunctional Literacy on YouTube!.

Read Dysfunctional Literacy on Amazon!