Long a fan of Russell and Lillian Hoban’s collaborative “Frances” books for children, “The Sorely Trying Day” is, arguably, even better. The lovable but mildly irritating young badger Frances of such tales as “Bread and Jam for Frances,” “Bedtime for Frances,” and “A Baby Sister for Frances,” demonstrates Russell Hoban’s ability to get to the heart of family life. There are telling moments that reveal the tensions and joys Frances’s parents experience in day-to-day life, a sense of good humor and realism that charms and encourages. All but the first book were illustrated by Hoban’s wife Lillian.
“The Sorely Trying Day,” another collaboration between the couple, published in 1964, has all that and more with a new cast of characters in a Victorian family with four children, a dog, a cat, and a visiting mouse. Father returns home after a difficult day seeking comfort and good cheer only to find that all the children are fighting, the cat and dog are in a tiff, and Mother is worn out from trying to keep everyone in line.
The book offers such deeply satisfying lines as: “Mother was saying, ‘Stop that!’ But the children would not stop.’” The recriminations and justifications are all too familiar, but as the family tries to trace back what caused all the upset, there is a satisfying sense that order is restored and hope is possible again.
A “sorely trying day” is precisely the word for a difficult day, especially when children are afoot. In reviewing “The Trolley Car Family,” I wrote about a fictional depiction of one of those days: “the eggs are dropped and broken, the toddler is unattended, the clean laundry is blown off the line and through the dust and will have to be rewashed. A bad day in family life involves a level of tedium and mess that feels utterly hopeless.” Call it “reframing” or call it a keen sense of good humor, envision the disaster as a humorous episode and the day just might be saved.
I was saddened to learn that Russell and Lillian, who married in 1944 and raised four children together, divorced in 1975. They might have had a sorely trying year or ten, but with their insight into the joys and trials of family life, it’s sad to think that they didn’t have it in them to see it through. While they may have gone their separate ways, their collaborative work celebrating the quirks of children and the excitement they bring to the home remain wonderful additions to the family library.
Once again, we must offer praise and thanksgiving to the New York Review of Books Children’s Collection for reprinting this classic and making it available to a new generation of mothers and fathers at their wits’ end.
