The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex

I read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy years ago.  Okay, in truth, it was actually years and years ago.  (A significant difference.)  But reading The True Meaning of Smekday brought back visions of “several dozen huge yellow chunky slablike somethings, huge as office blocks, silent as birds” sailing over Earth.

No, in Smekday the Earth is not destroyed to make room for a hyperspace bypass, but nevertheless the appearance of the Boov over the Earth, some in “ships the size of Rhode Island” appearing over major cities of the world from New York to London to Moscow, reminded me of Douglas Adams’ classic.  Even if the Boov ships look like jellyfish.

Gratuity Tucci, known to her friends as Tip, explains the Boov’s intentions.

1. They believe Earth is rightfully theirs because they discovered it. 
2. Colonizing new worlds is their destiny.
3. They were sorry for the inconvenience, but humans will surely assimilate into Boov society.
4. Disagree and your leaders will meet messy ends.

Tip was concerned ever since her mother’s night time abduction.  Soon her mother is taken by the Boov permanently.  When the Boov realize the humans won’t just give in, Captain Smek himself appears on TV and orders the “Noble Savages of Earth” to move to “Human Preserves.”  Americans get Florida.  Eleven-and-a-half-year-old Tip decides to drive rather than take the rocketpods provided by the Boov.

Tip, her cat named Pig, and the car end up in a hole in the highway - Boov created, of course, to persuade humans to take the rocketpods.  A Boov who calls himself J.Lo and claiming to be Chief Maintenance Officer Boov, discovers them and offers to fix their car.  It’s an odd offer, but Tip soon learns that J.Lo himself is trying to keep other Boov from finding him.

Their journey to Florida, and eventually Arizona, takes them to places like Roswell, New Mexico (appropriate, don’t you think?) and the Happy Mouse Kingdom, where my favorite attraction is the cigarette trees around the Big Rock Candy Mountain, not because of any personal tobacco preference, but because of this:



There’s plenty more to cover, including what happens in Arizona, the Gorg, incidents and residents in Roswell, allergies, plenty of explosions, and a wonderfully satisfying conclusion, but I’ve already strayed to a video from Oh Brother Where Art Thou, so we’d better just wrap it up and call it good.

Middle graders and above will appreciate The True Meaning of Smekday.  Girls will like the female protagonist who’s unafraid to travel across the country or to look a Gorg in the eye, and boys will like the action and explosions and the whole take-over-the-Earth thing.  Teachers will like it because Adam Rex has given them another book that can be added to the shelf that won’t spend much time there.

Guess Again! by Mac Barnett and Adam Rex

Guess Again! has all the characteristics of a classic children’s picture book. Predictable text written in rhyme, pictures that offer comprehension clues, topics young readers will find familiar, and flaps and foldouts for little fingers.

And Grandpa Ned.

The first page features a picture of a garden. Vegetables grow in the background. Carrots, some still buried, some half eaten, are in the foreground. In the center is the black outline of what is apparently a fuzzy, floppy-eared creature. The text on the opposite page mentions stolen carrots, soft hair, and hard teeth. The last two lines read:

“His floppy ears are long and funny.
Can you guess who? That’s right! My …”

The reader then turns the page to reveal the obvious conclusion to the rhyme.

Okay, there’s a reason this book is called Guess Again!. The obvious conclusion of the rhyme never comes. Instead readers are presented with completely unrelated, un-rhyming, unbelievable alternatives, each more absurd than the last, and every one downright hilarious.

I can’t in good conscience give them away. Get it. Read it for yourself. Here’s what happened the first four times I read it:

1. By myself – I laughed so hard tears streamed down my face.
2. Aloud with my 10-year-old – Again, uncontrolled laughter. Both of us cried.
3. Aloud to my wife – More fits. Wife acknowledged book’s hilarity.
4. Prepared for this review – Tears shorted out keyboard.

After enjoying Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem so much, I looked for more books by Mac Barnett and Adam Rex. Guess Again! exceeded all expectations. It is head-thrown-back, tears-run-down, short-of-breath, unable-to-finish-even-short-sentences, laugh-out-loud funny.

Trust me. For more information, just click Grandpa Ned.

Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem by Mac Barnett and Adam Rex

I like books that get your attention right from the start, and lines like “Mom says, ‘Billy Twitters, clean up your room, or we’re buying you a blue whale,’” do exactly that. They get your attention.

Honestly, this book had me with the advertisements inside the front cover. Seaman Stubb’s Do-It-Yourself Sailor Tattoo Kit sold me on their “Hula Girl” design, and what self-respecting book reviewer could pass on a mail order course from Professor Pequot on Monkey Training or Scurvy Etiquette?

But this book isn’t about tattoos or monkeys or vitamin C deficiency. It’s about Billy Twitters, a boy who doesn’t clean his room, doesn’t brush his teeth, doesn’t finish his baked peas … and does end up with a blue whale.

And all the responsibilities that come with it.

Billy needs to take his blue whale to school. He needs to feed it. He needs to play with it, clean it, and check it for barnacles. The book follows Billy through Day One of blue whale ownership. In the end, Billy does learn responsibility. He also learns hanging out inside a whale, at least his blue whale, isn’t nearly as bad as that guy Jonah made it out to be.

Kids will certainly enjoy the story, but adults will enjoy it on another level. Kids will find it funny that Billy tows his blue whale to school on a skateboard behind his bike, but it’s the adults who will giggle when they realize Billy lives in San Francisco. Kids will like Billy’s Blue Whale Owner’s Manual, but the adults will notice the manual resembles the emergency cards in commercial airplanes. (And that whales apparently have emergency exit routes.)

This is what makes Mac Barnett and Adam Rex’s book such a winner: Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem will have both kids and adults laughing. And it’s books like Billy Twitters – books that kids and adults enjoy together – that truly Help Readers Love Reading!