By Judith Viorst
The boy from the Terrible, Horrible day is moving a thousand miles away, and he has decided he is simply not going.
Dad got a new job a thousand miles away, so the whole family is moving, and Alexander has decided he's staying put. He is not leaving his best friend Paul, or the babysitter, or the pizza place that knows his order, or the drainpipe that's just right for climbing. He'll live with the neighbors instead, or with Paul, or in his own tree fort forever. One by one, though, the people he's counting on turn out to be busy, or moving themselves, or not really an option, and the boxes keep filling up around him whether he packs or not. He complains the entire way, and with real style, because this is the same Alexander who had the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Then Dad promises a dog for the new house, and with nothing left to argue against, he wipes his eyes and starts putting his things in a box.
Most moving books hurry a child toward being brave about it. This one stays in the part before that, the furious and heartbroken and absolutely-not-going part, and never rushes him out of it. Viorst doesn't argue Alexander down; she lets the move happen around him until he's ready, which is close to how it actually goes. For a child dreading a move of their own, that can be a real relief: here is someone saying the loud no out loud, and no grown-up in the book shames him for it. Some children will laugh the whole way through. Some will go quiet at the end, when he finally reaches for the box.