Whenever I visit schools, children are desperate to tell me their favourite jokes. In one assembly, a boy in the middle of the audience waved his hand in the air furiously, as though he was busting for a poo. When I chose him, he stood up and mumbled his joke so quietly that a big-eared bat would have struggled to hear him.

There was only silence in response.

He tried again, staring at his shoes and blinking nervously as the words tiptoed past his lips.

An air-conditioning unit hummed overhead. Someone snickered.

The boy’s cheeks turned pink.

My heart dropped. I was there to deliver laughter and enjoyment, not embarrassment and ridicule.

I quickly stepped through the crowd, avoiding feet and fingers, until I was right beside the boy. He told the joke again, directly in my ear.

When I repeated it loudly and confidently, the entire school laughed and the boy sat down, as proud as a prize-winning peacock.

That was when I got the idea for You’re Joking: Become an Expert Joke-Teller.

A book that could transform anyone—including that boy—into an ace jokester. A book that would give the reader the skills and confidence to blast their jokes out loudly and clearly. To dazzle the right audience at the right time. To squeeze maximum laughs out of each and every joke.

Here are some glistening nuggets of information from that book that will steer you towards joke-telling mastery:

Know your Joke

This might sound obvious, but the most important thing to remember when telling a joke is the joke.

Seriously.

Have you ever suddenly remembered a hilarious joke and felt the urge to tell everyone right then and there? You start speaking before thinking and the next thing you know, you’ve told the punchline first and ruined the joke.

I used to do that all the time.

These days, I run through the joke in my head before telling it, making sure I’ve got all the key points in the correct order. You can do this while washing the dishes, riding the bus, or while waiting for your maths lesson to end.

Also, try to avoid reading jokes straight out of a joke book. If you find one that you want to share, repeat it to yourself three times, then close the book and tell it to your audience. This is much more likely to get a laugh than telling it with your eyes glued to the page.

Know your Audience

Jokes are like underpants. There’s no one-size-fits-all. The jokes that your best friend finds funny will be different from the ones that tickle your grandmother. Hopefully, their underpants will be quite different, too.

Many things affect our sense of humour. Our age, gender, religion, culture, tastes and preferences all influence what we find funny—or not. It’s therefore important to choose the right joke for each situation or audience.

If in doubt, play it safe. If you’re unsure of your audience’s tastes, tell some universal cat jokes. Or food jokes. Keep your butt and fart jokes for those friends that definitely like toilet humour.

Practice your Delivery

Simply memorising a joke is not enough. You may know it word for word, but if you don’t deliver it well, you won’t get any laughs. Or you might get laughs for all the wrong reasons. Practice saying the joke out loud several times. Try telling it to a mirror to see what you look like. When you’re confident that you know the joke and can deliver it well, test it on a friend or family member before telling it at a whole-school assembly.

Delivery Tips

Here are some delivery tips to think about while you practise.

You’re Joking: Become an Expert Joke-Teller

Dig deeper into joke-telling with my book You’re Joking: Become an Expert Joke-Teller, which was shortlisted for the NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. Along with many more delivery tips and joke-mining instructions, you’ll unearth structured exercises to hone your skills, and 101 hilarious jokes to add to your shining treasury of joke-telling gold.

Practice Jokes

Here are ten of my favourite jokes from I’m Joking for you to practise with: