Oliver Bounces Back!

Have you ever read Judith Viorst’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day? It was one of my favorite picture books when I was a child. Why? Because it highlighted a universal problem facing all children and adults alike. This is the problem of what to do when a Bad Day hits us. I think I loved this book because I could connect with Alexander, and I was glad to realize that other people have Bad Days too. That had never occurred to my child self before. Oliver Bounces Back!, by Alison Hughes, is a modern-day version of this Alexander story, but it also adds strategies for coping with Bad Days. It teaches resilience and perseverance. It will help children realize that others feel the same emotions as themselves.

Oliver is a boy experiencing common daily frustrations, but, when many annoyances all happen on the same day, Oliver realizes that he is having one of those “bad days”. His comb gets stuck in his hair. His favorite shirt is wet in the wash. His shoelace broke. He was late for school because of construction. Oliver dropped his muffin in the dirt. Then he sat on his art project by accident, and a classmate took Oliver’s favorite blue spot on the carpet. And this is only the beginning!

At first, Oliver growls and complains. He tells the bus driver, “No high-five today” as he gets on the bus. As bus mates squeal in delight at the site of a bulldozer which delays traffic, Oliver sits in silence with a grumpy expression on his face and his arms folded. He runs into class late and stressed out. He closes his eyes and puts his head down on his desk with a clunk! At recess, he sits by himself with his dirty ball cap – it fell in the mud – while, around him, school mates play.

Midway through the day, Oliver decides to change the bad day into a better day. He draws a picture of his dog and shares it with a classmate. He helps the teacher pass out the craft supplies and helps his classmate Gavin with math so that Gavin will have no homework. The orange that rolls off his tray and bounces along the table makes Oliver realize that he can choose to bounce back. He gets all his classmates bouncing around during recess, making the supervision teacher dizzy. Oliver has learned resilience, the ability to recover quickly and press on when frustrations and troubles come his way. He has learned strategies to help him spring back, and these are shared with readers in an entertaining, yet instructional, way. Good conversations between adults and children can be had about this theme using Oliver Bounces Back! as a teaching tool.

The illustrations in Oliver Bounces Back! are realistic cartoon style, and they reflect the multicultural Canadian culture with children and adults from many ethnic backgrounds. A student with a disability is included, normalizing disabilities and implying inclusion. The illustrations are attractive and inviting to little readers. The tone is positive and bright. The actions and speech bubbles of the children reflect the innocence, humour and cheerfulness evident in many children. Even the book’s end sheets are a sunny yellow.

The plot is believable and realistic as are the characters. The clothing styles depicted are modern. One gets the sense that the Oliver and the others in the book could easily represent people in any classroom and in any school. The language used in the book is easily understood by young readers and facilitates the communication of the theme.