Aging & Wisdom Quote by Brian P. Cleary

Cleary’s line works because it gives kids permission to miss the joke without feeling like they’ve failed the book. That’s a quietly radical move in children’s publishing, where adults often treat “getting it” as the price of entry. Instead, he reframes confusion as normal and even expected: comprehension isn’t a gate, it’s a spectrum. The “perfectly okay” is the key phrase, a little safety rail that lowers the stakes and keeps the reader moving.

The corny-joke confession is doing double duty. On the surface it’s self-deprecation, an author poking fun at his own dad-joke tendencies. Underneath, it’s an admission that children’s books are rarely written for a single audience. Cleary is acknowledging the invisible second reader in the room: the adult who buys the book, reads it aloud, or approves it for a classroom. “You have to be 40” isn’t a literal requirement; it’s a wink at generational reference codes, the way humor can smuggle in cultural artifacts (old TV, dated slang, pre-meme rhythms) that land differently depending on age.

The intent is also strategic. By announcing that some jokes are “for adults,” he flatters younger readers with proximity to grown-up space while protecting them from embarrassment if the punchline doesn’t click. It’s a soft lesson about reading itself: you don’t need total mastery to enjoy language. You can catch the rhythm now, and the extra meanings later, when life has stocked your brain with the missing context.