Judith Viorst – författare

In her remarkable national bestseller, Necessary Losses, Judith Viorst explored how we are shaped by the various losses we experience throughout our lives. Now, in her wise and perceptive new book, Imperfect Control, she shows us how our sense of self and all our important relationships are colored by our struggles over control: over wanting it and taking it, loving it and fearing it, and figuring out when the time has come to surrender it. Writing with compassion, acute psychological insight, and a touch of her trademark humor, Viorst invites us to contemplate the limits and possibilities of our control. She shows us how our lives can be shaped by our actions and our choices. She reminds us, too, that we sometimes should choose to let go. And she encourages us to find our own best balance between power and surrender.

On a day when everything goes wrong for him, Alexander is consoled by the thought that other people have bad days too.

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.

Eeny meeny miney mo, That babysitter's got to go. Lulu has put her tantrum-throwing days behind her. That is, until her parents announce that they are going on vacation-WITHOUT LULU. Not only that, but they are leaving her with the formidable Ms. Sonia Sofia Solinsky, who says hello by bellowing, "The Eagle has landed," and smiles at you with the kind of smile that an alligator might give you before eating you for dinner. The second her parents are out of the house, Lulu tries out several elaborate schemes to bring them straight back. But just when she seems to finally be making some headway, her babysitter reveals an astonishing secret…one that has Lulu crossing her fingers that her parents will go on vacation all the time-without her!