The Terrible Two is friend based prank fun reading

It’s important to point out that the title of the book is The Terrible Two and not the more commonly written “terrible twos”.  This is a book about the pranks, friendship, competition, nepotism and cows.  It’s an unlikely combination but it all works out in the end for this very enjoyable book that young readers (especially boys) will relate to and laugh at throughout.

Miles Murphy is the new kid in town.  He and his mom have just moved to Yawnee Valley, an idyllic looking place, filled with hills, valleys and cows.  Cows play a big back story role in the book.  They moo in the background when pranks go bad and the school principal gives all of the students a book that he wrote about the 1,346 interesting things you didn’t know about them.

When Miles goes to class his first day the principal’s car is parked in front of the school doors.  It’s a prank of inconvenience, but Miles is disappointed because he was the school prankster at his old school. Every new student at the school is assigned a buddy.  Niles Sparks is the go-to buddy at the school.  He wears the sash, is polite to all of the teachers and gets good grades.

Josh Barkin is the principal’s son.  He’s a suck up, bully and runs unopposed during school election because of the rules that he and the principal make up.

Immediately after Miles sees the car park prank he starts working on his prank that will introduce him to the school.  He plans a birthday party for the coolest kid in town, Cody Burr-Tyler who will be 13.  It’s an epic, grand scale party for this imaginary, cool kid that Miles invented. It was supposed to end with Miles jumping up on stage, introducing himself, taking all the birthday presents and saying that there was no such kid at Cody.  Just when Miles is about to jump on stage this tall blond kid jumps on stage, says ‘thanks for the gifts!’ and leaves the party in a stretch limo.

Miles’ prank has been pranked by someone else.  From here Miles makes friends, enters a prank war with the mystery prankster and ultimately helps plan one big prank that will teach Josh a lesson.

This is a very funny and enjoyable book.  It’s in the same vein as Wimpy Kid, if your child is 8-12 or likes those books then The Terrible Two is right up their alley.  Each chapter is 4-7 pages and has lots of big, friendly cartoons on them.

The Terrible Two is written by Mac Barnett and Jory John, with illustrations by Kevin Cornell.  Mac Barnett is the co-author of one of my favorite books of 2014, Battle Bunny.  The kid friendly, counter culture, slightly mischievous bent that was on display in that book presents the humor in The Terrible Two also.

The only bad thing to say about The Terrible Two is the entire lack of girl characters.  Will girls like it?  Most certainly they will like it, but there aren’t any characters for them to relate to in the book.  There are a couple girls in the class and a teacher who are mentioned, but that’s it for the girls in this prankster’s parable.