Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst

Hey, Story Seekers!

Alexander has gum in his hair.

His sweater is wet.

Nobody saved him the good seat in the car.

His teacher likes somebody else's picture better.

His lunch has no dessert.

The dentist finds a cavity.

And we're not done.

This kid needs a new day.

We're exploring Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, written by Judith Viorst and illustrated by Ray Cruz, a 1972 picture book about one boy having the kind of day where every new event feels personally arranged by the universe to annoy him.

Readit has reviewed Alexander's situation and would like everyone to understand that no dessert in the lunchbox is a legitimate complaint.

He feels strongly about this.

Book Breakdown

Alexander knows it's going to be a bad day almost immediately.

He went to sleep with gum in his mouth.

Now it's in his hair.

Not promising.

He trips over his skateboard. His sweater ends up in the sink while the water is running. His brothers get prizes in their cereal boxes.

Alexander gets cereal.

Then comes the car ride. His brothers get the window seats.

Alexander gets the middle.

And his solution starts taking shape.

Australia.

He is going to move to Australia.

School does not help. His teacher prefers Paul's sailboat to Alexander's invisible castle. He gets in trouble for singing too loud. At lunch everybody has something good.

Guess whose mother forgot dessert.

Correct.

After school, the dentist finds a cavity in exactly one member of the family.

I don't think I need to tell you who.

The hits keep landing through shoe shopping, an elevator mishap, lima beans for dinner, bath trouble, pajamas he doesn't like, and kissing on television.

By bedtime, Alexander has assembled enough evidence to prosecute the entire day.

Here's Viorst's trick. Most of these disasters aren't disasters.

They're kid disasters.

That's a different thing.

A cavity isn't the end of civilization. Neither is the middle seat. Neither are lima beans.

But stack enough small aggravations on top of each other and the lima beans stop being lima beans.

They become the final insult.

Ray Cruz understands that. His black-and-white drawings don't try to cheer Alexander up with bright colors and bouncing sunshine. Alexander spends most of the book looking rumpled, squeezed, and fed up with the entire arrangement.

Good. Let him.

Nobody in this book says, "But look at all the wonderful things that happened today!"

Because he would leave for Australia on the spot.

For teachers and librarians: ATOS 3.7 · 741 words · grades PreK to 6 by TeachingBooks. Atheneum, 1972, thirty-two pages. One caution on the Lexile: TeachingBooks says 840L and the publisher says AD970L, and I'm not going to pick one and pretend they agree. Age guidance also varies by edition, from 4 to 7 on one and 6 to 9 on another.

Jungle Jimmy's Journal

I like Alexander because he's allowed to complain.

Really complain.

This isn't one small disappointment followed by twenty-eight pages about gratitude.

The kid is having a lousy day, and some of it is petty.

That's what makes it good.

Adults have petty bad days too.

The coffee spills. The printer won't print. Somebody takes the parking space. You drop something.

Then the toothpaste cap falls in the sink and you're standing there thinking:

Of course.

OF COURSE THE TOOTHPASTE CAP FELL IN THE SINK.

The toothpaste cap didn't ruin your life.

It joined a team.

That's Alexander's day. Viorst keeps stacking small offenses until Australia starts to look like a reasonable plan.

And then his mother gives him exactly the right thing at the end.

Not a solution. Not a lecture. Not a forced list of five things to be grateful for.

She tells him some days are like that.

Even in Australia.

Perfect. She doesn't deny the bad day. She just lets him know bad days belong to everybody.

That's a far more useful kind of comfort, and a reader named Calista put her finger on it: what she likes most about the story is the end, because the mother doesn't try to make it better.

The read-aloud rhythm helps too. That enormous title keeps coming back as Alexander's running verdict on events. Kids catch the pattern fast, and once they do, hand it to them.

Alexander is fun to voice because he isn't quietly disappointed.

This boy is keeping records.

You can hear the case building.

Bad thing.

Bad thing.

Another bad thing.

AUSTRALIA.

By the end, that ridiculous title doesn't feel ridiculous anymore.

It feels accurate.

Readit's Review

I think Alexander has some good complaints and some complaints that are maybe his fault.

The gum?

Why did you go to sleep with gum in your mouth?

Come on, Alexander.

But no dessert?

BAD.

Getting the middle seat?

Also bad.

The dentist finding a cavity only in you when your brothers are right there?

That feels suspicious.

And I would be mad if my teacher liked somebody else's sailboat better than my invisible castle.

IT'S AN INVISIBLE CASTLE.

Maybe she just couldn't see how good it was.

I don't understand why Alexander thinks Australia will fix everything.

Australia probably has dentists.

And lima beans.

Actually, I don't know about the lima beans.

We should check.

What Others Think

Alexander has had a lot of company since 1972. Goodreads shows 4.24 out of 5 from 188,900 ratings and about 3,300 written reviews.

The dominant reaction isn't praise. It's recall.

The reviewer carol. explains why better than I can: "Burned in my brain forever. First, because of the wonderful list of descriptors in the title, repeated throughout the story. I must have hit it at the right time in language development, because it stuck in my mind."

That's a book installing a phrase in somebody's head for life.

Philip, who has clearly kept his copy, opens his review this way: "I bought this book in 1989. Well, my parents bought it for me. There's a half-peeled-off sticker that says, MY BOOK in red bubble/block lettering with 'Philip' scrawled on the name line. I was in first grade."

The novelist Robin Hobb turns up in the reviews too, and gets straight to the use of it: "Who hasn't had this sort of a day?... A great book to share with a kid who gets frustrated when 'everything seems to go wrong for me!'"

And a reader named Ben simply quotes the last line, which is all the review that line needs: "Some days are like that... Even in Australia."

Now, the honest part, and it's a real split.

Some readers don't want to spend a whole book in Alexander's mood. Spencer Orey liked it as a kid and doesn't now: "it's kind of a downer. Like, I guess it's good that kids can empathize. There are going to be bad days. But still. Downerrrrr."

Another reviewer gave it two stars after reading it to her niece and reported they simply weren't impressed.

That's worth knowing. If you're after a book where a child learns three coping strategies, takes a calming breath and turns the afternoon around, Alexander is not your guy.

He's busy.

His pajamas are wrong.

Belly Laugh Scale

3 out of 5: Solid Chuckles

This is recognition humor.

Nothing here is wildly absurd. No cows are typing. Nobody has been turned into a cheese man. Alexander is simply having so many ordinary annoyances that the pile becomes funny.

His repeated threat to move to Australia helps. So does the absolute seriousness with which he catalogs every offense.

Kids laugh because they know the feeling.

Adults laugh because we still do it.

Three out of five.

Unless somebody forgot your dessert. Then nothing is funny.

Final Explorer Verdict

I'd put Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day in front of kids around 4 to 9.

And the kid I'd hand it to first is the one having a rotten day.

Not because Alexander will fix it.

He won't. That's the point.

Sometimes a kid doesn't need a character who handles everything better than they do. Sometimes they need a character who says: this stinks.

And then has lima beans for dinner.

Viorst respects Alexander enough not to make him learn a giant lesson by bedtime. Cruz respects him enough to let him look miserable. And his mother respects him enough not to argue him out of his own experience.

Tomorrow might be better.

Today wasn't.

Both of those are true at once, and a kid can hold both.

And Australia?

Sorry, Alexander.

Bad days apparently have passports.

Keep exploring, Story Seekers!

Jungle Jimmy & Readit