I think there is humour in the book; e.g. the description of her and her brother painting the roof, and her father dangling her by her ankles to finish the attic window
.
Or the section describing what happens when children got too inquisitive:
"...until one fateful day when my sister, Mary, proclaimed to the assembled neighborhood children, from a little platform we had erected in the backyard, “Ladies and Gentlemen, babies are born out of people’s stomach holes.” I can still taste the heart medicine."
