The Backward Day

Ages 3 to 7, Grades P to 2

A classic picture book by a Caldecott Medal-winning team about a very funny day that moves in reverse.

Imagine your whole day lived backwards, from beginning to end. When you get up, you'd put on your overcoat first, then your shirt and pants, and over those your underwear, because after all, backwards is backwards, and on a backwards day backwards is the way everything has to be. You'd walk downstairs backwards and sit at the table backwards, and when your parents greeted you in the morning you'd say, of course, "Good night." But how long can backwards day go on? Just long enough for a bright little boy to reverse the spell he's put on the whole household and make everything go back to normal. The Backward Day is a charming 1950 picture book by the Caldecott-prize-winning team of Marc Simont and Ruth Krauss. Simont's bold illustrations bring to life a humorous and engaging reversal of ordinary reality that will enchant young children and their parents.

Story Locale:n/a

Publication History:1st US pub 1950; NYR Children's Collection reissued in 2007

About the Author

Ruth Krauss (1901-1993), a member of the experimental Writer's Laboratory at the Bank Street School in New York City in the 1940s, imaginatively used humor and invented words to create some of the very first books for children that highlighted a child's inner life. She collaborated with some of the greatest illustrators in children's literature, including Maurice Sendak and her husband, Crockett Johnson. NYRB Kids will reissue her picture books Everything Under a Mushroom and The Backward Day in Fall 2024. 

Marc Simont (1915-2013) illustrated nearly a hundred books. He won a Caldecott Honor in 1950 for illustrating Ruth Krauss’s The Happy Day, and in 1957 he was awarded the Caldecott Medal for his pictures in A Tree Is Nice by Janice May Udry.

Author Residence: New York, NY

Author Hometown: Baltimore, MD

Illustrator Residence:New York, NY

Illustrator Hometown:Paris, France