Raj Haldar and Chris Carpenter, (adding Bryce Gladfelter) came back together in 2020 to make another LOL read. And though it might not be as easy to read, or fun, as P Is for Pterodactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever (to me at least), No Reading Allowed: The Worst Read-Aloud Book Ever has plenty of chuckles and is good.
I think the main issue is that there are homonyms and sound-alikes, but you need to know the meaning of some words to make the joke stick. I do not see some kids “getting it” even with the illustrations. Such as The mummy prepared farro for dinner. / The mummy prepared pharaoh for dinner. While this is one of the easier ones, you will still have to explain farro / pharaoh to the reader. Therefore, know your audience. I think it would work well in the classroom setting and you could go up to fourth grade even (and if you have a child willing to overlook the picture book format, which can be a turn off for older readers) it would work even higher. As it is punny and right up the alley of those older students.
The signature style of the original is back and is as goofy as ever. It might be a bit more polished this time, but that is probably more due to the publishing updating in the two years between the two books than anything else. Plus, there is a new illustrator, too. The artwork does help with that bump in definitions for me and just made me laugh regardless of the sentences presented. Though there is an afterwards that can help with any word that is unknown.
