Expert joke-tellers know lots of jokes. They collect them, like coins or Pokemon cards. Whenever you read or hear a good joke, add it to your collection. This is called building your repertoire (pronounced REP-er-twar).
Your repertoire is the collection of jokes that you know and often tell. Not every joke you hear or read will make it into your repertoire, but always be on the lookout for decent jokes. When that slightly annoying uncle or the funny kid in your class start telling jokes, keep your ear out for the ones that make everyone laugh, and add those to your repertoire.

Joke books, joke websites and YouTube are also great places to find jokes to join your repertoire. If you’re not sure where to begin, I add a new collection of jokes to my website every month. You can check them out at www.TomEMoffatt.com/jokes. Or if you want to hear me telling fresh jokes each month, subscribe to my YouTube channel: Tom E. Moffatt’s Write Laugh.

Joke Books
Joke books are a great source of new jokes, so try to add to your collection every birthday and Christmas. Here are three book recommendations to get you on your way:
I’m Completely Joking by Tom E. Moffatt – Okay, I’m biased! But it contains more than two thousand completely original jokes, so this is a great place to find howlers that no one has heard before.
Awesome Jokes that every 5/6/7/8/9-Year-Old Should Know by Mat Waugh – These books will help you find those perfect jokes for your (or your audience’s) age level.
The Big Book of Silly Jokes for Kids by Carol P Roman – A huge book crammed with more than 800 jokes, including lots of the old classics.

Search the Internet
The internet can be an even better resource than books for building your repertoire, as you can use it to fill specific gaps in your collection. However, there is a wide range of quality on the internet, so you’ll have to sieve a lot of silt to find the gold nuggets.
You’ve already found my website (www.TomEMoffatt.com/jokes), so you’re off to a very good start. But here are three other recommended sites to get you started:
www.funology.com/funology-jokes-and-riddles/
www.jokes.boyslife.org/
www.ducksters.com/jokes/

YouTube
YouTube is also a great place to find jokes, because some jokes are better heard than read. Plus, you get to witness both good and bad examples of joke-telling. It’s hard to find YouTube channels that consistently post jokes, since most of the quality productions are one-off videos. But there are lots of great ‘Try-not-to-laugh’ challenge videos for kids. And if you subscribe to my YouTube channel – @WriteLaugh – you’ll get to hear me telling original jokes every month.

Write them Down
The more jokes that make it into your repertoire, the harder it becomes to remember them all. For this reason, it’s a good idea to write them down somewhere. It could be an old school workbook or a cloud-based document. Whatever it is, you need easy access, so you can jot those great jokes down before you forget them.

I use a cloud-based document on my phone, so it’s with me at all times. But a journal hidden in your sock drawer would also do the job, provided you remember to write those hilarious jokes down the moment you get home.

The Joke Collectors Notebook

To make life easier, I’ve created a journal specifically for collecting jokes. It’s called the Joke Collector’s Notebook and is filled with lined pages and a contents page that you fill out yourself. There are joke-telling tips and tricks scattered throughout the book, and each double spread contains an illustrated joke. There’s even a space on the front cover to write your own name.
And for those dominators of the digital domain, I’ve created an awesome Word Document version of the Joke Collectors Notebook. It’s packed with jokes, fun illustrations and tips, plus it has navigation buttons to jump you straight to your favourite jokes. You can download it for FREE at www.TomEMoffatt.com/notebook.

To get you started, you’ll find ten of my favourite jokes from I’m Seriously Joking below: