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.

A little brother imagines how great life will be once he’s bigger than his older brother in this classic, saucy tale of sibling rivalry from master storyteller Judith Viorst. Mother says deep down in his heart Anthony loves me. Anthony says deep down in his heart he thinks I stink. Anthony’s younger brother puts up with a lot. Anthony won’t read to him. Anthony is always threating to clobber him. Anthony thinks he stinks. There’s nothing he can do now…but just wait until he’s six! Then he’ll fix Anthony! Judith Viorst’s funny, classic sibling rivalry story is as timeless as ever.

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.

And so you’ve reached that time in life when you’re starting to “pick investments over adventure, / And clean over scenic, and comfortable over intense”; when, even though in your heart of hearts you’re much younger, the rest of you is (how did it happen?) forty. Judith Viorst, the wise and witty lady of It’s Hard to Be Hip Over 30 and Other Tragedies of Married Life, is here to guide you through these forty-ish years with poems that reflect the highs, the lows, and the everything-in-betweens of midlife. Viorst playfully considers the prospects of sagging kneecaps, awkward college reunions, and fantasies of love in the afternoon; being baffled by one’s Buddhist bisexual vegetarian Maoist offspring; cholesterol counts, adult-education courses and other atrocities of midlife—which somehow aren’t as painful when you can laugh at them. Filled with warmth, humor, and insight, How Did I Get to Be 40 & Other Atrocities is Judith Viorst at her best.

“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 collection of wry and witty 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.

"[A] collection of poems that explores the peeves and pleasures of a long marriage ... and what lies beyond. Judith Viorst began publishing poetry in the 1960s in New York magazine, and since then, her works have celebrated life's milestones with wit and poignancy. Married for fifty-five years, she now casts a rueful, experienced eye on the amusing annoyances and deep satisfactions of a long marriage ... and what a couple must inevitably confront together"--

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

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. Now Judith Viorst looks at what it's like to be (gulp) fifty. Writing with the warmth and authenticity that have become her trademarks, Viorst once again demonstrates her uncanny ability to transform our daily realities into poems that make us laugh with recognition. Whether her subject is the decline of the body ("It's hard to be devil-may-care/When there are pleats in your derrière") or future aspirations ("Before I go, I'd like to have high cheekbones./I'd like to talk less like New Jersey, and more like Claire Bloom"), she always speaks directly to our condition. Her funny, compassionate poems shed a reassuring light on the fine art of aging, and will delight anyone who is now (or forever) fifty.

When Alexander feels mad or dad he wants to move to Australia. But most of the time he likes it right where he is. So when his mom and dad say that they're moving a thousand miles away, Alexander decides that he's not going. Never, Not ever. No way. Uh uh. N.O. For how can he leave his best friend or his favorite sitter or Seymour the cleaners? he'd rather stay and live in a tree house or cave. And even though Nick calls him puke-face and Anthony says he's immature, he's not (Do you hear me? I mean it!) going to move.

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.

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

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.

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.

For years, hundreds of thousands of readers have enjoyed Judith Viorst's poetry and prose on the challenging, sometimes hilarious subject of her own marriage. Now, in this thought-provoking new book, the author of "Suddenly Sixty" and "Necessary Losses" explores what a grown-up marriage means and helps married couples of every age and at every stage figure out how to have one.

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.

Many kinds of survival are presented in this collection of stories, articles, plays and poems.

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.

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?

Although Alexander and his money are quickly parted, he comes to realize all the things that can be done with a dollar.

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

If you've ever had trouble apologizing or keeping a secret, had a crush or a broken heart, there's a poem here for you! Written with humor and understanding, Judith Viorst's poems are certain to delight children and adults alike -- and be read again and again.

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