A Good Day (review)
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- A Good Day
In this very short, very simple picture book, four featured animals—a bird, a dog, a fox, and a squirrel—are all having bad days. The tide turns, however ("But then . . . ), and the same animals find happy solutions to their problems. In a satisfying conclusion, a little girl finds the bird's missing feather (the cause of his original consternation), which makes her day and leads her to frolic happily in the rural landscape among the other four contented animals. While the text is spare and the illustrations simple, there is real resonance in this tale, rooted mostly in the suggestion that bad days can turn into good days on a dime. The watercolor [End Page 369] and brown ink illustrations are tightly focused on their subjects, and each animal is composed of bold, precise strokes and framed in a thick brown square. Facial expressions distinctly model both unhappiness and happiness, clearly indicating the animals' mood changes. This begs to be read again and again, and it would also work very well as a writing prompt for the early elementary set as they explore what makes a bad day better.
