The Terrible Two

The Terrible Two is a middle-grade fiction novel for readers between the ages of 8 to 12 and is a school-based story, a subgenre of children’s literature that focuses on kids navigating school life. Including student hijinks, caricatures of administrators, and highlighting the triumphs of friendship, these novels are widely loved by school-aged kids who appreciate the humorous take on what can be a tense and anxiety-inducing time in life. Following in the footsteps of similar school-based novels like Matilda by Roald Dahl, Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey, and the Wayside School series by Louis Sachar, the novel uses comedic elements to engage the readers while tackling more serious subject matter such as bullying and anxiety.

Known for his imaginative storytelling, Barnett has written numerous picture books and believes that there is great power in a well-illustrated book, especially for reading aloud. As a kid, Barnett was obsessed with pranking and read many books on the subject, though he was never brave enough to carry any of them out at school, fearing he would get into trouble. He did, however, test his pranks out on his mom at home. Just like his protagonist Miles, Barnett has a prank notebook full of diagrams and elaborate descriptions of his pranks. Barnett met Jory John while both were working as interns at writer Dave Eggers’ 826 National, an organization that supports underfunded student writers. They became instant friends and were constantly initiating prank wars against each other (Sutton, Roger. “Mac Barnett & Jory John Talk with Roger.” The Horn Book Inc., 2015).

More than a decade later, the two writers lived near each other and decided to turn their love of pranking into a children’s book. Taking turns at one house or the other, the writing duo worked side-by-side to create a draft of the novel. Working in a shared Google Doc, they would trade working on separate sections of the novel, but sometimes coming together to work on specific characters. Along with the pranking theme, the authors both incorporated parts of themselves into the storyline. The comedic tone of the narrative is an amalgamation of both of their senses of humor and both authors moved to new towns as kids and share the experience of having to start over in a new school.

Over 15 years after they first had the idea, with help from illustrator Kevin Cornell, they published their novel in 2015. While on the book tour, the co-authors continued to incorporate their love of pranking into their school and library presentations. They often shared pranking tips and excerpts from pranking notebooks in their book talk, and for one group of students, they arrived in full disguise, fooling the students into thinking they were hearing a presentation about nutrition instead of the novel. Though Barnett has collaborated with many other authors and illustrators in his career, he sees his relationship with John differently. Along with co-collaborators, they are best friends who happen to enjoy working together. Like their fictional duo Miles and Niles, the co-authors recognize and value each other’s strengths and use the power balance to plan and produce works of art far better than they could on their own. After taking more than a decade to create their first novel, the authors wrote the second book in the series, The Terrible Two Get Worse, just two years after the first publication, followed quickly by The Terrible Two Go Wild, and the final book in the series, The Terrible Two’s Last Laugh (Meythaler, Amy. “Mac Barnett and Jory John: Award-winning Authors Creating Tales of Hilarious Hijinks.” Mackin Community, 2015).