The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (titled The Worst Kids in the World in Australia, New Zealand and the UK) is a children's novel written by Barbara Robinson in 1972.

The six Herdman children – Imogene, Ralph, Claude, Leroy, Ollie, and Gladys – are notorious for their rowdy misfit behavior, including cigar smoking, cussing, drinking jug wine, shoplifting, and committing arson.

They have never been disciplined because their father hopped a train and never came back when Gladys was just a baby and their mother is always working multiple shifts to make ends meet.

Everyone in town is expecting the Christmas pageant to be a disaster, but the Herdmans' unconventional performances actually make the whole show much more realistic and moving: instead of walking on and off stage like actors, the Herdmans are a little uncertain about where to go and what to do, as the real-life Holy Family and Wise Men must have been; instead of laying the doll representing Jesus in the manger, Imogene insists on holding it, as if it is really her child; the Wise Men choose to bring the baby Jesus a ham from the Herdmans' own gift basket instead of the "crummy" frankincense and myrrh from the story; the shepherds are sufficiently terrified of Gladys to look authentically awed by her announcement of Jesus' birth; and during the final scene, the narrator looks over from the choir and is dumbstruck to see Imogene weeping softly while hugging the "baby".

[4] Dallas Jenkins, creator and director of the TV series The Chosen, announced in late 2023 that he was signed to direct a feature-length film adaptation of the book.