The Last Kids on Earth and the Nightmare King

Max Brallier's The Last Kids on Earth and the Nightmare King is a monster-apocalypse comedy for 9 year olds about a boy who's scared his friends are going to leave him.

What happens

Jack Sullivan is having a brilliant time. The world has ended, there are zombies everywhere, and he's racing his buddies through town on the back of his monster-dog, Rover. (They call it Real-Life Super Mario Kart.)

Then they hear a voice coming from the old fire station. A human voice, crackling out of a radio. Somewhere out there, other people are still alive!

Everyone is thrilled. June and Quint might find their families. Everyone, that is, except Jack.

Jack grew up an orphan. He has no one to go back to, and everything he has is right here, with his buddies in their tree house. So what happens to him if they leave?

His plan (sort of) is to make life here so much fun that nobody will ever want to go. A humans-versus-monsters tournament, with events like Human Tossing and Projectile Fire Puking. A trip to an amusement park. Anything!

Meanwhile an enormous winged beast called the King Wretch has its eye on Jack. When it stares into his eyes he gets strange dreams of being a king. He decides not to tell anyone. Is that a good idea? Probably not!

It's loud, fast and really silly. Jack talks to you the whole way through like you're his mate, and the pictures do a lot of the jokes. But underneath it there's a very real worry. Anyone who's ever been scared of being left behind will get it.

One scary bit comes early on, when the King Wretch grabs Rover and he lies very still in the road. He's soon back on his paws, but a soft-hearted reader might need a little reassurance.

This is the third book and it carries straight on from the first two. New readers will get far more out of it if they start with The Last Kids on Earth, where Jack is all alone in his tree house.

What to read next

If they love a narrator who cracks jokes while the world falls apart, Boyband of the Apocalypse is in the library too. Sam only goes to a boyband concert because he's been promised a phone, and ends up convinced the band wants to destroy the world.