Reviewed by: One of Those Days Karen Coats Rosenthal, Amy Krouse One of Those Days; illus. by Rebecca Doughty. Putnam, 2006 [32p] ISBN 0-399-24365-8$13.99 Reviewed from galleys R 5-8 yrs It's been over thirty years since Viorst's Alexander had his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, but as those days still plague us, it's high time for another litany of life's minor grievances. The endpapers of this catalogue of quotidian calamities feature a grid of faces in various guises of grim as they ponder the annoyances that make for one of those nothing-is-going-my-way days—No Fair Day, Keep Spilling Stuff Day, Can't Afford It Day, Answer to Everything Is No Day, etc. Witty illustrations give flesh to the daily titles, with shaky black outlines tracing potato-shaped heads, flat oval eyes, and unhappy mouths. Peg legs with impossibly small feet poke out beneath pants and skirts—maybe it's this small detail that, while remaining comic, nonetheless arouses pathos as it renders the figures utterly mournful and convincingly dismayed with their temporary lot in life. Rosenthal does a quite satisfactory job of picking out universally resonant reasons for bad days, but of course audiences will happily respond, generating their own diary of disasters. Schadenfreude notwithstanding, it just makes you feel better to know that everyone has days like these. Copyright © 2006 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois