D. J. Arneson

Don't let the cover fool you. There is no western or cowboy theme to the jokes randomly collected here.

I'll save you having to read the book by presenting here the only funny joke:

Which elephants wear sunglasses?
Wrong. Witch elephants wear pointy hats and fly around on brooms.

That's it. The rest of the jokes are either bad or just badly written.

Many of them are about elephants and the Jolly Green Giant, but for some reason, the author seems really obsessed with making yo-yo jokes the new show more knock-knock jokes. He offers up at least a dozen variations on this structure:

If a spinning top on the end of a string is called a yo-yo, what do you call a spinning wrecker truck on the end of a string?
A tow-tow.

Other iterations link Santa Claus to a "ho-ho," an egg to a "yolk-yolk," a tailor to a "sew-sew," and so forth. It's rather sad every time a new one pops up. show less

If the stories in this book can be said to share a message, it'd be "Don't mess around with the supernatural." It's quite refreshing to read tales that so unabashedly revel in the relentless evil of the various things that go bump in the night. I suspect that this book would have been a frequent reread had I come across it as a kid.

The writing is straightforward and very minimalist: setups are clearly signposted as such, and warnings meant to be heeded can only go unheeded. And yet the show more stories don't feel predictable as much as inevitable: something wicked this way comes, and there's nothing you can do to avoid it! show less

It started off really boring for me so I stopped reading it for a few days or so. When I picked it back up again, I was able to finish it without issue and ended up really enjoying it.

I've always somewhat liked the Peter Pan cartoons/movies & had hoped I'd liked the book. I didn't really expect much and it kept my interest just enough to finish it. I gave it a 4 out of 5 because when I picked it up the second time to finish it, I did enjoy it...but not quite enough to give it a 5 out of 5. show more

I think anyone who likes classics and/or young adventure stories, it's worth at least trying to read. It's a cute short/easy read. show less

It started off really boring for me so I stopped reading it for a few days or so. When I picked it back up again, I was able to finish it without issue and ended up really enjoying it.

I've always somewhat liked the Peter Pan cartoons/movies & had hoped I'd liked the book. I didn't really expect much and it kept my interest just enough to finish it. I gave it a 4 out of 5 because when I picked it up the second time to finish it, I did enjoy it...but not quite enough to give it a 5 out of 5. show more

I think anyone who likes classics and/or young adventure stories, it's worth at least trying to read. It's a cute short/easy read. show less