Judith Viorst

I guess the lack of realism in the drawings of the monsters is what made this not as scary to me as a child, and that monsters were not really what I worried about. The realism of the story and the humanizing of the mother are really good.

Alexander's problems are real things that kids deal with, and mostly things that everybody deals with. Everybody has bad days, and it's something that kids could identify with and see that they're not alone. They'd be able to say, "I'm having a bad day just like Alexander."