A Comedy of Errors

From the backcover blurb:

"Children are at their funniest when trying to be serious, and their earnest attempts at mastering the English language are a goldmine of unintentional humour. 

This book is packed with hysterical  examples of silly spelling and wonky words, from the charming to the ludicrous, and from the profound to the downright X-rated!"



I scored this little unpretentious book along with the National Geographic Society-published commemorative edition (2009) of Soviet-vs-US rivalry on space exploration after the second World War and enjoyed it just the same, it made me long for those light reading sessions in school days with a genuine laughter.

Those handwritten words straight from a child's hand as compiled by Richard Benson added a sense of character as each line silently reveals how children sees the World in their own light in spite of errors and mispellings. Just like Bill Cosby's television show in the 90's, if kid's say the darndest things, kids can always write the darndest thoughts. And we love them for that because they can do it well, unknowingly.

Some examples:

"I sleep in my bedroom. My brother sleeps in his bedroom. My mummy sleeps in hers and daddys bedroom but daddy sumtimes sleeps on the sofa with our dog. I think this is because he grawls like a dog when he is snooring in his sleep."

"In geography we learned that countries with sea round them are islands and ones without sea are incontinents."

"Our solar system is made of a sun, nine planets, lots of moons and balls of fire which fly around inside the system and can cause damage. These are called hemaroids."


Genre: Humor
Rating: 3.5 hemaroids