Children's Books: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day - by Judith Voirst

When choosing books for young children it is important for parents, guardians and teachers to screen each book for quality and appropriateness. The book should be judged on a number of points. As a parent, for each book you read, you should be assessing whether or not the book is at the appropriate level for your child. Does the book meet your standards in terms of skill in encouraging language development, cognitive development, personality development, and social development.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, by Judith Viorst, is a book most appropriate for children from age five to nine. Alexander has a horrible day, from start to finish, and as he goes through his day he experiences feelings that we are all familiar with, including: anger, sadness, jealousy, confusion, and frustration. Alexander adamantly declares, on more than one occasion, that he is going to move to Australia to get away from all of the terrible things that are happening to him. In the end, he realizes that everyone has a bad day once in a while, no matter where they live.

The sense of language development portrayed in this book is not very strong. While the book is very creative and the words used are appropriate for the age level, the sentence structure is long and quick-paced. Reading the sentences out loud gives us a realistic idea of the rushed and hurried feelings that Alexander is having throughout his day, but the run-on type sentences do not give children a proper idea of day to day sentence structure and development.