The whole day, nothing seems to go right for Alexander. It starts when he wakes up with gum in his hair, and it just gets worse. 'I look at this fierce tiger of a little boy and I see this loving, benevolent father and head of a family and it's a thrill to me practically every day,' she says.Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day is a 1972 children's book written by Judith Viorst and illustrated by Ray Cruz.Īlexander is having a terrible day. But I'm gonna keep rooting for him.'įifty years after it was written, Judith Viorst is happy with how Alexander turned out. 'This is a guy who's sort of been in my life forever,' says Alexander, 'and he keeps having crappy days. When they were little, he read them their grandmother's books - including this one. 'I think the world has gotten tough and even if they're not watching the news and reading these incredibly depressing stories, I think it must seep into them.' Viorst believes it's harder to be a kid today. Viorst says that's partly why she wrote it, 'These days happen to everybody and I think it makes it a lot more tolerable when you think you haven't been singled out.'īack in 1972, there was no internet or social media gossip riling people up, not to mention 24/7 access to a relentless number of tragedies. 'It's a good model of how it can be ok to sit with your emotions and that you don't always need to fix things and that having a bad day is just part of life,' says Sykes.Īfter 50 years of 'crappy days,' the real Alexander says, 'I'm gonna keep rooting for him.' / Simon & Schuster

Sykes says one of the reasons Viorst's book is such a good resource for discussion is that there's no judgment of Alexander's behavior. Yes, they teach ethics and philosophy to second graders. She said to him: ''But of course your name won't be in great big letters on the front of the book.' At that point he decided to keep it Alexander,' she says.Īt the Kent Place School in Summit, N.J., a group of second graders read and discuss Alexander with Ariel Sykes, assistant director of the school's Ethics Institute. Viorst did what she calls a 'totally manipulative mommy thing' and proposed changing the name of the kid in the title. He said 'Why are you giving me this bad day? Why don't you give it Nick? Why didn't you give it to Tony? Why me?',' Viorst recalls.

She wrote the book about Alexander thinking it would cheer him up. One was about sibling rivalry called I'll Fix Anthony. Courtesy of Judith Viorstīy 1972, Viorst had already written a couple of children's books. 'He didn't think it was at all amusing,' she recalls. In 1972, Judith Viorst wrote Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day thinking it would cheer up her son Alexander.

Terrible horrible day book