Author: Judith Viorst
Illustrator: Ray Cruz
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Major Awards: ALA Notable Children's Book
Age Group: PreKindergarten - 4th
Summary:
Alexander woke up and started having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. It all started with having gum in his hair, dropping his sweater in running water, and tripping on a skateboard. After not getting a ring in his cereal box, he had a thought of moving to Australia. Throughout the day, he goes through many events at school and felt like it was definitely going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. When the family got home, Alexander had some dinner, took a bath, and spent some time with his family. Once he got to bed, he accepts that today had been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. His mom tells him that some days are like that, even if he wanted to move to Australia.
Evaluation & Comments: It was actually my first time reading this book. I found it interesting and a good book to use in the classroom. I think it is an important lesson to teach the students that not everyday is going to be perfect, it is okay to have bad days like Alexander was having in the book. Even though students may have bad days, they can learn that it's okay and in the end, it will not be the end of the world. The students can also learn about emotions in the younger grades if they're still learning about emotions. For actual assignments, I think that it would be a good activity if they were given sentence frames and have them write what they would do for certain events that happened in the book. Of course, there can be class discussions during the read aloud to see what they would do for each event as well.
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