“the worst kids in the history of the world”

“the worst kids in the history of the world” is the narrator’s repeated description of the Herdman family. Its force comes from the contrast between its sweeping, almost storybook scale and the specific acts the narration supplies to support it: the phrase is not left as a bare insult, but is repeatedly attached to a record of disruption, danger, and fear.

First catalogue of offenses

In the opening account, the narrator calls the Herdman children “absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world” and backs the judgment with a rapid list: they lie and steal, smoke cigars—even the girls—talk dirty, hit little children, curse their teachers, and take the Lord’s name in vain. The list culminates in their setting fire to Fred Shoemaker’s old, broken-down toolhouse. The building burns to the ground, an outcome that surprises even the children, who set fires often but had never before managed to burn down a whole building. The phrase thus gathers both habitual misbehavior and an unusually destructive consequence under one emphatic label.

Recurrence at school

The wording returns in the account of the Herdman family’s place in the school year. The narrator again calls them “the worst kids in the history of the world,” this time naming further grounds for the reputation: they are described as dishonest, uncheerful, uncooperative, unclean, and unwilling to learn; they also smoke, set fires, hit younger children, curse, and stay away from school whenever they choose. Yet they are present on the first day of each year, making their arrival a reliable signal that another “exciting Herdman year” is beginning at Woodrow Wilson Elementary School.

Meaning in the narration

The expression works as a refrain that turns a string of incidents into the narrator’s organizing judgment of the Herdman family. Its repetition links the memorable toolhouse fire to the everyday expectations of school life, where the children’s return is treated as an annual certainty. The narrator adds that there is one Herdman child in each grade and that none is held back, so classmates encounter the same child year after year; the narrator has Imogene and tries to stay out of her way. The phrase therefore conveys more than disapproval: in the narrator’s account, the children’s reputation shapes how others anticipate and navigate their presence.