From the moment he wakes up, Alexander's troubles begin. He finds gum in his hair but no prize in his cereal box. At school, his best friend downgrades him to "third best," and his teacher won't let him sing. When his mother takes him to buy new shoes, instead of getting "hot-hot-hot-hot" blue sneakers with red stripes, he only fits into the "plain old white ones." And each terrible, horrible, very bad thing that happens strengthens his hopes of moving to Australia, because it is far away and all of his problems would disappear.

Judith Viorst was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1931. She is the author of several works of fiction and non-fiction for children as well as adults. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, her most famous children's book, was first published in 1972 and has since sold over two million copies. Ms. Viorst received a B.A. in History from Rutgers University, and she is also a graduate of the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute where she is a research affiliate. She began her career as a poet and has since completed six collections of poems for adults. Her first novel for adults, Murdering Mr. Monti, was published in 1994 and her work of non-fiction, Imperfect Control, was published in January 1998 by Simon and Schuster. Her book Necessary Losses, published in 1986, appeared for almost two years on The New York Times best-seller list in hardcover and paperback. Ms. Viorst's children's books include The Tenth Good Thing About Barney, The Alphabet From Z to A, and the "Alexander" stories: Alexander, Who Used to be Rich Last Sunday, Alexander, Who's Not (Do You Hear Me? I Mean It!) Going to Move and, of course, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.