The Terrible Two’s Last Laugh

Jory John and Mac Barnett's The Terrible Two's Last Laugh is a very funny prank story for 9 year olds about two best friends starting their last year at school with an old enemy suddenly in charge.

What happens

Miles and Niles open the book in huge coats and sunglasses on the number three bus, with livestock paint and half a lawn mower strapped to their bodies. By the next morning a local cow is bright green with purple spots and the farmer's field is covered in polka dots. Nobody can work out who did it (aliens, according to the farmer).

Then things change at school. Principal Barkin has decided he wants to be a Pranking Principal, and he's so proud of swapping a teacher's boiled egg for a raw one. But a phone call puts his grumpy father in charge of every school in the valley. And the old man has been promising to get even with Miles and Niles for a very long time.

The best thing about these books is the voice. The narrator talks straight to your reader. He apologises that the book can't afford colour printing. He tells new readers what they've missed and then says sorry to everyone who already knew. It feels like being let in on a joke.

Miles and Niles are lovely together too. There's a moment on the bus when Miles hides under a coat on the floor and Niles hands over two tickets he had all along. They laugh until their stomachs ache. Who doesn't want a friend like that?

A small heads-up. The plot gets going when the old superintendent dies, told very lightly (peacefully, in her sleep, the book is quick to say). And the Barkin family dinners are pretty chilly, with a dad who makes his son feel like a failure.

This is the fourth book about the pair, so it works best for a reader who's already met them. Grown-ups here are mostly ridiculous, and the children run rings round them. If that's your reader's favourite kind of story, they'll love it.

What to read next

If they're new to Miles and Niles, start with the very first Terrible Two book, where Miles moves to Yawnee Valley and finds somebody at his new school is already a better prankster than he is.