Seri­ous­ly, folks: Mel Brooks is an impor­tant Jew­ish Amer­i­can! Ann Koff­sky and Jason Kirschner’s pic­ture-book biog­ra­phy of the come­di­an, actor, and film direc­tor is the per­fect intro­duc­tion to Brooks’s irrev­er­ent humor for young read­ers. A warm tone and appeal­ing illus­tra­tions explain how this boy from Brook­lyn came to the per­fect out­let for his innate tal­ent: find­ing some­thing fun­ny in improb­a­ble sit­u­a­tions. His long career and lega­cy stand out as remark­able, and yet, also rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Amer­i­can Jew­ish experience.

When the book begins, five-year-old Mel Kamin­sky is seat­ed in a big the­ater, watch­ing a scary movie with his old­er broth­er. Koff­sky presents sig­nif­i­cant moments, such as this one, as key to the grownup Brooks’s career. Kirschn­er cap­tures the set­ting of an ear­ly twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry trip to the pic­tures. The dom­i­nant col­or is blue semi-dark­ness, with deep red seats, and a gray image of Franken­stein on the screen. Lat­er, Mel’s kind­ly moth­er alle­vi­ates his fears with an inven­tive expla­na­tion of why the mon­ster can­not pose a threat, since he lives in far-away Roma­nia. Behind every suc­cess­ful Jew­ish man is a strong mater­nal figure.

Mrs. Kamin­sky was not the only influ­en­tial adult fig­ure in young Mel’s life. Passover seders are enlivened by his Uncle Lee’s nar­ra­tion of the Exo­dus from Egypt as a base­ball game. While some fam­i­ly mem­bers are laugh­ing, Mel’s grand­fa­ther, attempt­ing to con­duct a seder with dig­ni­ty, is less than amused. ​“What’s so fun­ny?” he asked, his eye­brow raised quizzi­cal­ly. This ques­tion would become a com­mon one Mel faced when he lat­er became a come­di­an. Observ­ing the audience’s response at a Broad­way show, Mel observes that snap­py lines can evoke laugh­ter as well as seri­ous ques­tions. In the mean­time, telling jokes served as a good way to deflect the bul­lies who some­times attacked him.

Brooks had already begun appear­ing in night­clubs when his new suc­cess was inter­rupt­ed by ser­vice in World War II. Did Ger­man sol­diers real­ly applaud when they heard his ren­di­tion of an Al Jol­son song? Either way, Brooks became more con­vinced than ever that humor had sub­ver­sive pow­er. A scene of the young script writer Brooks work­ing in ear­ly tele­vi­sion is a price­less oppor­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss the antique tech­nolo­gies pic­tured: a man­u­al type­writer and an old-fash­ioned tele­vi­sion con­sole. There is also a large bul­letin board dis­play­ing decid­ed­ly ana­log index cards as part of the writ­ing process.

A quick tour of Brooks’s best-known films con­cludes the sto­ry of how young Mel became old­er Mel, still using ridicule and satire to scare away pow­er­ful mon­sters, includ­ing anti­semitism and oth­er forms of hatred. His­to­ry of the World Part I and Space­balls are two of the films men­tioned by name. The Pro­duc­ers is not, but char­ac­ters from this par­o­dy of Nazism are includ­ed in the illustrations.

In 2015, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma pre­sent­ed Brooks with the Nation­al Medal of Arts. Kirschn­er shows how, even at this solemn moment, Brooks suc­ceeds in crack­ing up both the chief exec­u­tive and the audi­ence. From a boy fend­ing off bul­lies, to an accom­plished adult pok­ing fun at the pow­er­ful, Brooks has nev­er lost the con­vic­tion that humor is seri­ous stuff.