The Horn Book Guide

PICTURE BOOKS

Hoban, Russell

The Sorely Trying Day

32 pp. | NYRB | March, 2010 | Trade ISBN 978-1-59017-343-5 $14.95
Reissue (1964, Harper)

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Lillian Hoban. The book's cover--a sedate family portrait--sets the tone of this nostalgic joke, written and illustrated with sober, nineteenth-century formality. Poor, weary father, after "a sorely trying day," comes home to a commotion of brawling children, misbehaving pets, and a distraught mother. One by one the guilty characters repent, and peace and contentment are restored. A deliciously funny book.

Reviewer: The Horn Book, Inc. | Horn Book Magazine Issue: June, 1964