The True Meaning of Smekday

4.5 stars. I'm not sure why, but I can't quite call it five stars. This review is also available on my blog, Read Till Dawn.

I heard really excellent things about The True Meaning of Smekday, so I decided to read it even though my mother really didn't like it (she thought it was stupid). After finishing it, on one hand I can see what she means about the book being stupid fluff - after all, it's a silly book about a girl and an alien driving across the country in a floating car after the aliens invaded Earth. Yeah, not a lot of depth there. But on a different level, a deeper level, The True Meaning of Smekday is much more than a silly romp through cliche action tropes. On that other level, it's actually mocking those cliches. Case in show more point: this quote from the book (which I added to Goodreads because it was too long to put in here).

Underneath the entertainment fluff, it's actually a pretty serious look at racism and "racial superiority." There are a lot of parallels between the Boov's colonization of Earth and the European colonization of America, and I think it's an amazing way to point out the terrible mistakes made in the past through a first-hand exploration of the colonization of the Boov, who honestly believe that humans are basically like dogs and don't really mind being relocated into cramped human reservations. The parallel is accentuated by one of the secondary characters, a Native American man who has spent his entire life dealing with bias. It's also extremely powerful, at least to me, that every time Tip talks about her mother she has to explain to people that her mom is Caucasian, not African American. The idea that a black girl can have a white mom doesn't jive with people's perceptions of race, and it throws them for a loop.

But enough about the serious stuff. Let's get into the characters who make this book so funny! Tip is a fun narrator because she's so down-to-earth and sarcastic. She is such a realist it's hilarious, and she's constantly saying things like "this is the way things should happen: [insert what usually happens in novels] . . . and, yeah, that didn't happen." This was incredibly refreshing to read, and made her feel so much more realistic. Her life isn't like something out of a storybook, things happen that are messy and ridiculous and embarrassing. And sure, crazy stuff happens that will never, ever happen in real life, but it never feels like the book jumps off the real end because Tip is just so . . . so human that it really feels like her story is perfectly reasonable.

Now let's talk about J.Lo. He has to be my favorite character! I love his way of speaking English, slurring words together and using them incorrectly at the funniest times. He's like a combination of an adult and a little kid, altering between adult-level skills (like dealing with complicated machinery) and making kiddy mistakes/having the simplistic reasoning skills of a child. It works out to be hilarious, and heartwarming, and I just want to bring J.Lo home and have a long conversation with him about, I don't know, just about anything so I can hear more of his goofy reasoning.

All in all, a great book that I highly recommend. It's the most engaging social commentary I've ever read, and the awesome thing about it is that you can totally not pick up on any of the underlying messages, and still have a great time with it! The message doesn't drive the plot, the characters drive the plot and the message just kind of hitches a ride underneath.

P.S. You've probably heard of the movie Home, which is based on The True Meaning of Smekday. I watched it right after finishing the book, and I really enjoyed it. You should definitely watch it if you're interested. Don't watch the movie first, though, because it cuts out a lot of the best parts from the book, and spoils the rest of them! show less

Hysterical! Adam Rex has to be a pseudonym for Tom and Ray (the Car Talk guys) and Daniel Pinkwater! All the fun is in the details. Besides an alien on the lam named JLo, we have aliens procreating via pimples, spaceships made of skin, aliens fought by a group of boys calling themselves b.o.o.b.(they like the name), happy mouse kingdom, boov genders of boy, girl, boy-girl, boy- boy, girl-girl etc., a cat named pig, transportation devices located in urinals, and one crazy, crazy car.
A perfect narration by Bahni Turpin, who can join my Jim Dale club. Now I need to get my hands on the books and see the visuals. Pardon my language!

Eleven-year-old Gratuity Tucci is used to being the grown-up in her family - her mom is a little impulsive (manic?). But when her mom is abducted by aliens and returns with a glowing purple mole in the back of her neck, that is definitely out of the ordinary. Gratuity - Tip to her friends - is left alone when the Boov invade and send everyone in America to live in Florida. Tip takes her mom's car and their cat, Pig, and decides to drive to Florida instead of taking a Boov rocket pod, but she runs into trouble on the way. She teams up with a Boov who has also run into trouble; he fixes up her car, and they remain a pair throughout the rest of the book, from Florida to Roswell to Arizona and back, dodging other Boov, surviving a show more hurricane, discovering the secrets of "Happy Mouse Kingdom," and defeating the Gorg.

Tip is clever, cool under pressure (mostly), creative, determined, and very funny. Her relationship with J. Lo (the Boov who fixes her car) is a model of open-mindedness (and some snark). Written in the form of an essay for a hundred-year time capsule, this is Tip's story of how she - not Daniel Landry - saved the world.

Recommended in audiobook webinar (and Bahni Turpin's narration is definitely top-notch! This is a longer audiobook than I would normally listen to, almost 11 hours, and I listened to the whole thing).

See also: We're Not From Here by Geoff Rodkey

Debbie Reese's critique of Smekday: https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/search?q=Smek show less

Everything everyone ever told me about this book is true. I adored it. Tip was fantastic and having the tale written as an essay from her point of view really let her personality shine through. J.Lo was almost just as great, as were Pig, the different BOOBs, the Chief, Tipsmom, and the rest. The illustrations and comics were important to the story and were adorable. Had I children, I'd read this to them. Since I don't, I'll most certainly be gifting it. It's fun, it's wildly entertaining, and it's rooted in the realities of the world and doesn't shy away from things like racism but makes them completely understandable and approachable for children (and anyone) to think about. So much fun!

Eleven-year-old Gratuity "Tip" Tucci's mother is abducted by aliens, who then conquer the Earth and decide to relocate the population of the United States to a human reservation in Florida. Gratuity elects to drive rather than be transported, takes her cat, picks up an alien in need of a ride, has all kinds of trials, tribulations and adventures, and ultimately plays an instrumental role in liberating the world.

It's a wonderfully fun combination of hilarious wacky comedy, science fiction, road trip story, and satire on colonialism in one of those rare volumes that seems likely to work so well for both adults and kids that I'm honestly not sure which audience the author had in mind while he was writing. I enjoyed it immensely.

Although I show more am tempted to take back half a star for the way that the characters keep leaving their cat in the car for hours on end. In hot climates. In the summer. With no apparent bad consequences. Come on, Mr. Rex, that's just irresponsible! (I am, however, fine with the eleven-year-old driving a car by tying cans of corn to her feet so she can reach the pedals.)

Rating: 4.5/5, if I ignore the car-and-cat thing. show less

Gratuity (her mother didn't realize that it meant "tip") had a homework assignment,

"Write an essay titled THE TRUE MEANING OF SMEKDAY.
What is the Smekday holiday? How has it changed in the year since the aliens left?"

The winning essay will "be buried with the National Time Capsule, which will be uncovered one hundred years from now."

Fast forward to 2114 and read Gratuity (Tip) Tucci's essay (both the official and extended versions) and find out what happened when the Boov invaded the Earth, or Smekland, as they prefer to call it.

Tip falls in with a renegade Boov, who goes by the name of J.Lo. Together (with her cat, Pig) they go in search of her mother, who has been relocated with the other humans to Florida (No, scratch that, show more Arizona), in a floating car called Slushious.

Despite the language barrier,

"I awoke in the afternoon to find a note from J.Lo saying he'd gone ahead to Vicki's to eat soap. Actually, it just said "JLO(BiKi5OP," but I thought that was pretty good."

J.Lo's interesting method of explanations,

"Let us say , after televisions are invented, that there is only then a few channels. Three or four. We will call them, A, G, Semicolon, and Pointy."

and the great technological differences between the two,

"I scattered J.Lo's tools around the car, searching for some kind of rope, or something that could be used like a rope. I should have paid more attention to anything that looked like a pencil sharpener made of lemon Jell-O that, when cranked, would spit out superstrong yarn that smelled like ginger ale. I only mention this because J.Lo really did have such a thing. He told me so later,"

Tip and J.Lo are a formidable duo. But can they save the Earth? And who are they saving it from?

The True Meaning of Smekday is laugh-out-loud funny, but more than just humor - it offers a fresh look at war, politics, race and of course, alien relations. Irresitibly funny!
Don't take my word for it - Here's 10 reasons to read The True Meaning of Smekday! http://www.smekday.com/10reasons.html
Just released in paperback.

http://www.shelf-employed.blogspot.com show less

If you haven't figured it out by now, my other passion besides books are movies. I watched Home which came out last year and starred (the voices of) Jim Parsons, Rihanna, and J. Lo. Imagine my surprise when I found out that it was based on a middle grade (I struggled over this designation) novel entitled The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex. (Do you see where this post is headed?) Both storylines focus on a little girl named Gratuity "Tip" Tucci as she tries to find her mom in the aftermath of an alien takeover. The aliens are called the Boov and they've corralled the humans into a centralized location and taken over everything. This is where the similarities mostly end. The relationship between Tip and her mom, Lucy, is less than show more ideal. Her mother drinks a lot, is financially irresponsible, and relies heavily on her daughter who is only eleven. I appreciated that Rex wrote this in a matter-of-fact way. It's a reality that exists for many children and I think realistic relationships such as these are underrepresented. What's important is that despite all of that Tip is determined to find her mother so that they can be reunited. Of course, it's not as easy as that. She's in Philadelphia and the majority of humanity have been sent to Florida. She buys a car with the emergency savings they have in their apartment and sets out with her pet cat, Pig. (That wasn't a typo.) She meets a Boov named J. Lo (Firstly, it's a boy Boov which is awesome. Secondly, the book is actually dedicated to J. Lo and as mentioned above she voices a character (the mom to be exact) in the movie.) who enhances her car so that it hovers. They go on a rollicking, dangerous adventure to find her mom while dodging the Boov and another race of aliens called Gorg (actual race is Nimrogs but they are all named Gorg) who have also arrived to colonize Earth. Rex uses illustration in a clever way throughout the book. There are "polaroids" (pencil drawings) of different parts of their trip as well as comic strip illustrations from J. Lo with written explanations by Tip. It's a quick, fun read that I think would especially benefit reluctant readers. It had a lot of heart and touched on a lot of topics such as substance abuse, race, and loyalty. I really enjoyed it. :-D show less