New Releases by Judith Viorst

Throughout her career, Judith Viorst has written numerous books reflecting on life as she ages. Now in her nineties, she shares her experiences in life''s "final fifth" in this collection of poetry and essays. On her retirement community, she notes that it is "wonderful, marvelous, swell--good as gold. Except for this one little problem: everyone''s old." On her late husband (who died of COVID-19 in 2022), she pleads: "I need you fixing our damn circuit breakers. I need you! Could you please stop being dead?" With humor and vulnerability, Viorst invites readers to dance with her between grief and levity and to enjoy the time we have left to share.

Lulu is getting the sister she never asked for in this oh-so-funny illustrated chapter book filled with hilarious hijinks and fiesty twists from Judith Viorst. Lulu has received the worst. News. EVER. She’s getting…a baby sister. No one ever asked HER opinion on this debacle. But she’ll tell you anyway, because she no how, no way, no thank you wants a sibling. Undeterred, and to prepare Lulu for big sisterhood, her parents bribe—AHEM, ask—Lulu to attend Camp Sisterhood, a.k.a. big sister training camp. As a Sister-in-Training (SIT), Lulu is assigned a variety of temporary little “siblings” who are supposed to be so much fun Lulu will become excited to have a permanent sibling of her own. Well, no one ever said Camp Sisterhood was supposed to teach Lulu how to be a good big sister, so Lulu resolves to be a bad big sister. She insults her little siblings. She taunts them with secrets. She even tricks one of them into carrying both of their backpacks up a mountain! Then some BITs (brothers-in-training) from the neighboring Camp Brotherhood start picking on Lulu’s siblings, and Lulu responds by doing her red-faced, steam-coming-out-of-her-ears thing and showing those BITs who’s boss! After all, Lulu’s siblings may be duds, but they’re her duds, and sisters have to stick together.

The newest illustrated poetry collection in beloved author Judith Viorst’s “decade” series (from It’s Hard to Be Hip Over Thirty to Unexpectedly Eighty), exploring, with her signature savvy and humor, what it means to be an impending nonagenarian. In Nearing Ninety, bestselling author Judith Viorst candidly shares the complicated joys and everyday tribulations that await us at the age of ninety, all with a large dose of humor and an understanding that nothing—well, almost nothing—in life should be taken too seriously. While she struggles to make it to midnight on New Year''s Eve, while she’s starting to hear more eulogies than symphonies, while she’ll forever be disheartened by what she weighs (and forever unable to stop weighing herself), there is plenty to cherish at ninety: hanging out with the people she loves. Playing a relentless game of Scrabble. And still sleeping tush-to-tush with the same man to whom she’s been married for sixty years. Accompanied by Laura Gibson’s whimsical illustrations, Nearing Ninety’s amusing and touching reflections make this collection relatable to readers of all ages. With the wisdom and spunk of someone who’s seen it all, Viorst gently reminds us that everybody gets old, and that the best medicine at any age is laughter.

“Highly entertaining…Sit back in the bubbles and enjoy.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer Brenda Kovner, a newspaper advice columnist and amateur psychologist in 1990s Washington DC, doesn’t consider herself intrusive, just extremely interested in helping. If she knows the answer, she can’t shut up—even if no one’s listening. Since Brenda knows what’s best—for everyone—she secretly decides she must murder her son Wally’s prospective father-in-law, before he can get to Wally. She has a foolproof plan. In fact, she has a million of them. But first she’s got a few kinky desires of her own to satisfy.

From the beloved and internationally bestselling author of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Judith Viorst comes a brand-new collection of clever, hilarious, and poignant poems that touch on every aspect of the roller-coaster ride that is childhood. Did you wake up this morning all smiley inside? Does life taste like ice cream and cake? Or does it seem more like your goldfish just died And your insides are one great big ache? From school to family to friends, from Grrrr to Hooray!, Judith Viorst takes us on a tour of feelings of all kinds in this thoughtful, funny, and charming collection of poetry that’s perfect for young readers just learning to sort out their own emotions.

The rest of Alexander's family is moving a thousand miles away, but there's NO way Alexander is going to leave his best friend, his favorite babysitter, or all the places and people he's known all his life. Even if he has to live in a tree house or a

A boy is nervous about a presentation he has to give at school.

Alexander tries his hand at behaving in this hilarious companion to the bestselling classic Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Last night somebody ate a whole box of jelly donuts. That somebody woke up with a terrible bellyache, and that somebody’s mom found the empty box and told that somebody that there are going to be consequences. That somebody is Alexander, and Alexander really hates consequences. So from now on, he is going to try his best to be the Best Boy Ever. For the complete and entire rest of his life. Starting right this very minute. But there are all sorts of things that you can’t do when you’re being the Best Boy Ever. Fun things. Very important things. Things that Alexander might—just might—like a little bit more than he hates consequences.

Lulu needs help from a boy named Fleischman if she is to earn money walking her neighbors'' dogs, and she finds out that if she wants her business venture to succeed, she has to be nice.

Cuando Alexander se siente triste o enojado, le dan ganas de mudarse a Australia. Pero, por lo general le gusta donde está. Así que cuando sus padres le dicen que la familia se va a mudar a mil millas, Alexander decide que él no va a ir. Nunca. Jamás. De ninguna manera. Ni hablar. N. O. ¿Cómo puede decirles adiós a su mejor amigo y a su niñera favorita y a la Tintorería Seymour? Prefiere quedarse a vivir en una casita en un árbol or quizá en una cueva. Y aunque Nick le dice cretino y Anthony le dice que es inmaduro, Alexander está decidido: “de ninguna manera—¿me oyen? —¡lo digo en serio!—me voy a mudar.”

From grief and mourning to aging and relationships, poet and Redbook contributor Judith Viorst presents a thoughtful and researched study in this examination of love, loss, and letting go. Drawing on psychoanalysis, literature, and personal experience, Necessary Losses is a philosophy for understanding and accepting life’s inevitabilities. In Necessary Losses, Judith Viorst turns her considerable talents to a serious and far-reaching subject: how we grow and change through the losses that are a certain and necessary part of life. She argues persuasively that through the loss of our mothers’ protection, the loss of the impossible expectations we bring to relationships, the loss of our younger selves, and the loss of our loved ones through separation and death, we gain deeper perspective, true maturity, and fuller wisdom about life. She has written a book that is both life affirming and life changing.

Although marriage is for grown-ups, very few of us are grown up when we marry. Here, the bestselling author of Suddenly Sixty and Necessary Losses presents her life-affirming perspective on the joys, heartaches, difficulties, and possibilities of a grown-up marriage -- and no, that's not an oxymoron! Featuring interviews with married women and men, the findings of couples therapists, the truths offered by literature and movies, and a bemused exploration of her own marriage, Judith Viorst illuminates the issues couples struggle with from "I do" through "till death do us part." Examining marital rivalry, marital manners, marital sex (extramarital, too), marital fighting and apologies, what kids do for (and to) marriage, and the boredom and bliss of everyday married life, Viorst leaves no marital stone unturned. From the early years when we wonder "Who is this person?" and "What am I doing here?" to the realities of divorce, remarriage, and growing older (and old) together, Viorst offers insights and advice with honesty, humanity, and humor -- all the while recognizing how tough it is to be married and, when it works, how very precious it can be.

Bringing together all of Viorst''s best-loved poetry, this collection includes many of the poet''s previously out-of-print favorites.

Judith Viorst is known and loved by readers of all ages, for children’s books such as Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day; nonfiction titles, including the bestseller Necessary Losses; and her collections of humorous poetry, which make perfect gifts for birthdays, Mother’s Day, graduation, Christmas, Chanukah, or at any time of year. Whatever became of Alexander after that famously bad day? And did you know that Judith Viorst is his mother? And what happens to her passion for household neatness and orderliness, her deep devotion to schedules, her compulsive yearning to offer helpful advice when Alexander— now grown up, married, and the father of three—moves his family into his parents’ house? What happens is controlled, and sometimes not so controlled, chaos, as lives and routines are turned upside down and the house is overrun with scattered toys, pacifiers, baby bottles, sippy cups, pink-sequined flip-flops, jigsaw puzzles, and fishy crackers. With her characteristic sparkle and wit, Viorst relates her efforts to (graciously) share space, to become (if only a little bit) more flexible, to (sort of) keep her opinions to herself, and even to eventually figure out how to unlock the safety locks of the baby's (expletives deleted) bouncy seat. She describes how she and her husband, while sometimes longing for the former peace and tranquility of unravished rooms and quiet dinners for two unaccompanied by cries of “Oh, yuck!” survived and relished the extended visit of the Alexander Five. She also opens our eyes to the joys of multigenerational family living and to the unexpected opportunities to grow that life presents—even under the most unlikely circumstances. Several generations of readers surely will relate to this funny and loving book, enhanced throughout by Laura Gibson’s delightful two-color drawings.

Judith Viorst is known and loved by readers of all ages, for children’s books such as Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day; nonfiction titles, including the bestseller Necessary Losses; and her collections of humorous poetry in her "decade" series, which make perfect gifts for birthdays, Mother’s Day, graduation, Christmas, Chanukah, or at any time of year. Suddenly Sixty is a funny and touching book that speaks directly to the sixty-ish woman, inviting her to laugh about, sigh over, and come to hopeful terms with the complex issues of this decade of life. Among the poems in this charmingly illustrated collection are those exploring the joys—and strains—of children and grandchildren, and the intimacy of old friends who’ve ‘known each other so long/We knew each other back when we were virgins.” There are poems that tip their hat to mortality, wrestle with a husband’s retirement —“He’s coming with me when I shop at the supermarket/So I won''t have to shop alone. I like alone.”— and acknowledge the fact that at this stage of life we’d “give up a night of wild rapture with Denzel Washington for a nice report on my next bone density test.” Offering plenty of laughs, a few tears, and cover-to-cover truths, these are poems for everyone who would “rather say never say die than enough is enough.” Every woman who has reached this decade will—rueful and smiling—find herself in the pages of this book.

Olivia, who is very neat and practically perfect, despairs because her sister Sophia is super-completely and totally the messiest person, no matter where she goes or what she does.

Warm, funny, compassionate, and reassuring, "You''re Officially a Grown-Up" describes--in verse and illustrations--all those terrifying but eagerly anticipated freedoms that go hand in hand with leaving home and trying to make one''s way in the world. 40 full-color line drawings.

In this magnificent follow-up to her bestselling "Necessary Losses", Viorst explores the need to control events, ourselves, and those around us.

Angry Alexander refuses to move away if it means having to leave his favorite friends and special places.

Amusing poems written about various aspects of being fifty years old.

A collection of poems that examines a wide variety of feelings and experiences from a child's point of view.

Alexander, who survived his bad day, learns a lesson in personal finance as he sees the dollar his grandparents gave him quickly dwindle.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

If his mother has made other important mistakes, can Nick trust her word that there are no goblins and such lurking around in the night?

A collection of children''s books on the subject of families.

Two friends tell what they like about each other-- even the bad things.