This riff on Judith Viorst's celebrated Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day shows a dramatic little girl complaining all the way through a day filled with mishaps, starting with too much milk in her cereal. The humor comes from the girl's overreactions and the way the watercolor and colored-pencil illustrations chronicle her struggles with things like getting on her tights and having hiccups in class. The "ode" structure shows in the way each section starts with the girl addressing each part of the day and its many frustrations, as in "Oh Bad Morning" and "Oh you Clothes," as well as in the rhyming format. The little girl lurches from soggy cereal to uncooperative clothes to a day at school that includes a kid who cuts in line and a pudding cup missing from her lunch. After school, she's bored at the store and faceplants in her slimy spaghetti. At book's end, "annoyed . . . / but not destroyed," she realizes tomorrow may be better. A bit one-note, but engaging.

With loads of age-appropriate melodrama, a young girl laments all the bad things that happen on a bad day, starting with "Too Much Milk in My Cereal." Late to school ("always rushing, hurry, hustling"), she falls and gets a boo-boo, then someone cuts the line at school ("that spot was mine, Sylvester Pine!"), she gets the hiccups, and she must eat a boring lunch (because, of course, the pudding cup was left at home). After school is no better: a boring trip to the market ("A chore at the store? I fall to the floor!"), slimy spaghetti for dinner, and the discovery of a noisy cricket in her room at bedtime (amusingly ironic, as the cricket has discreetly followed her all day long). Wallace's cleverly written ode is well complemented by Yum's (Grandpa Across the Ocean, rev. 7/21) familiar colored-pencil art in which the girl's big feelings are conveyed through exaggerated facial expressions and the extreme body language of a young drama queen (down on one knee, weeping in the store; an actual face-plant into her plate of spaghetti). While good at complaining, this girl is also unexpectedly good at turning things around (so far, she's seemed as inflexible as her stiff pink tutu). As she's tucked into bed, she philosophically notes that "a better day is on its way" -- one in which "lines are led by me," "pudding's all I eat," and "chores feel like a ride." Not a bad ending to a full-on bad day. Jennifer M. Brabander

Rather than glorifying a specific topic, these odes narrated by a schoolchild bewail myriad small annoyances that can accompany a bad day. In early lines by Wallace (A Home Named Walter), even the morning’s first moments presage trouble: “Oh Bad Morning,/ eyes are crusty, bones are rusty./ Why do all my teeth feel dusty?” Watercolor and colored pencil spreads from Yum (Luli and the Language of Tea) show the child, portrayed with light skin and black hair, frowning amid snarled-up bedclothes. The room’s stuffed animals, together with a visiting cricket, give the child a collective side-eye. Brilliant pinks and oranges offer heightened energy to Yum’s consistently engaging spreads, while sensory-focused lines list the indignities of the day: someone cutting in the racially diverse classroom’s line, a missing pudding cup at lunch, a spoiled art project, and more. Each individual annoyance may seem small on its own (“Oh Hiccup,/ you interrupt hiccup/ my play with Nick hiccup”), but the cumulative irritations make the day a total write-off—though not without some reflection (“I’m so annoyed.../ but not destroyed”) and the promise of a better tomorrow. Ages 5–8. Author’s agent: Jennifer Rofé, Andrea Brown Literary. Illustrator’s agent: Sean McCarthy, Sean McCarthy Literary. (Apr.)