The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex, 2007

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It all starts with a school essay.
When twelve-year-old Gratuity (“Tip”) Tucci is assigned to write five pages on “The True Meaning of Smekday” for the National Time Capsule contest, she’s not sure where to begin. When her mom started telling everyone about the messages aliens were sending through a mole on the back of her neck? Maybe on Christmas Eve, when huge, bizarre spaceships descended on the Earth and the aliens – called Boov – abducted her mother? Or when the Boov declared Earth a colony, renamed it “Smekland” (in honor of glorious Captain Smek), and forced all Americans to relocate to Florida via rocketpod?
In any case, Gratuity’s story is much, much bigger than the assignment. It involves her unlikely friendship with a renegade Boov mechanic named J.Lo.; a futile journey south to find Gratuity’s mother at the Happy Mouse Kingdom; a cross-country road trip in a hovercar called Slushious; and an outrageous plan to save the Earth from yet another alien invasion.
Fully illustrated with “photos,” drawings, newspaper clippings, and comics sequences, this is a hilarious, perceptive, genre-bending novel by a remarkable new talent. the planet from a really big catastrophe.

(423 pages)

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 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!

No More Dead Dogs by Gordon Korman, 2000

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Nobody understands Wallace Wallace. This reluctant school football hero has been suspended from the team for writing an unfavorable book report of Old Shep, My Pal. But Wallace won't tell a lie -- he hated every minute of the book! Why does the dog in every classic novel have to croak at the end?After refusing to do a rewrite, his English teacher, who happens to be directing the school play Old Shep, My Pal, forces him go to the rehearsals as punishment. Although Wallace doesn't change his mind, he does end up changing the play into a rock-and-roll rendition, complete with Rollerblades and a moped!
(180 pages)

This is one of my all-time favorites of Korman's - and that's saying a lot! I've read the vast majority of his books, and loved the vast majority of those. His books are funny, clever, witty, and always leave you with a smile at the end of the day. I own a bunch of Gordon Kormans, but this is one of my favorites - right up there with Schooled and The Chicken Doesn't Skate. I've read it literally more times than I can count, coming back to it again and again whenever I need cheering up or a reminder of why I love to read. I finally bought my own copy with one of the gift cards I got for Christmas, and I loved re-reading it yet again! It never grows old for me, and I could literally read it over and over again and never get sick of it.

This is a character-driven book, full of characters with just enough quirk to be hilarious and charming, but not enough to be over-the-top obnoxiously quirky. The traditional school roles of the jocks and the drama nerds are simultaneously affirmed and trampled in this book where the most happening event of the school year is the play, and the star of the football team spends far more time back-stage than he does on the field.

Speaking of Wallace Wallace (no typo, his first name is also his last name!), he is both heartwarming and hilarious. He unerringly tells the truth no matter what the question, or who is listening. This means that he is absolutely, rolling-on-the-ground, hilarious when people ask him questions that really warrant a white lie, not a detailed (and completely truthful) answer. I love him for being so honest, so straightforward, and so matter-of-fact about things. He wants more than anything else to be honest, but along the way he creates a big mess.

Of course, the story is not just about Wallace. It switches POV between many other characters as well, including Rachel (president of the drama club), Trudi (Rachel's ditzy best friend with a crush on Wallace), and Mr. Fogelman (the teacher who forces Wallace to participate in the play until he writes a positive essay about Old Shep, My Pal). The POV switches often enough to keep things fresh, without confusing the reader. Every chapter is narrated in first person by a different character, but each of them has such a different voice that it is impossible to forget who is talking. My favorite narrator would have to be Rachel, because I love her by herself and because I love seeing Wallace through her eyes.

I can't put into words why exactly I love this book so much, but I do, and I wholeheartedly reccomend it to anyone and everyone. Please, read it. You'll thank me once you're finished.

The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing by Sheila Turnage, 2014

Synopsis (from Goodreads):
When Miss Lana makes an Accidental Bid at the Tupelo auction and winds up the mortified owner of an old inn, she doesn't realize there's a ghost in the fine print. Naturally, Desperado Detective Agency (aka Mo and Dale) opens a paranormal division to solve the mystery of the ghost's identity. They've got to figure out who the ghost is so they can interview it for their history assignment (extra credit). But Mo and Dale start to realize that the Inn isn't the only haunted place in Tupelo Landing. People can also be haunted by their own past. As Mo and Dale handily track down the truth about the ghost (with some help from the new kid in town), they discover the truth about a great many other people, too.
(368 pages)


Two years ago, I was six feet away from meeting Ms. Turnage. She was on an author panel along with some other authors, but I had never heard of her. I did not buy her book or get in line to meet her, but I did go home and request her then-new book, Three Times Lucky. Three chapters in, I was already regretting not buying a copy at the event and getting it autographed. That book was gold. It was hilarious, and fun, and quirky, and I absolutely loved it. Now, I just discovered that there is a sequel. As soon as I saw Becky's review of Ghosts, I knew I had to get my hands on it.

I loved this book just as much as its prequel. It was hilarious, quirky, fun, and strangely touching at the same time - just like the first book. Most of this is because of the characters. Not just the main characters (although their characterization is amazing), but also the minor characters. There's the girl who will do any service for you online for the cost of a quarter. There's the boy who is an expert on all things weather. There's the school teacher who you can tell thinks Mo is cute, but keeps up a firm persona.

Speaking of Mo, she is such a hoot! The thing I love about these books is that Mo (short for Moses, because they found her as a baby floating down the stream) can get away with anything. She says the most outrageous things at the most outrageous times, and it's not awkward or stilted. Everyone knows her, so no one is offended. She has decided she is going to marry the nineteen-year-old brother of her best friend Dale, and so she is constantly making semi-rude remarks about his dates and openly telling Lavender (Dale's brother) that he should ask her to the dance. Lavender always laughs and turns her down, but not in a "wow you're weird" way. More of a "that's Mo for you" kind of way.

Mo is outrageous. She cooks up crazy plots, tells people things straight to their faces, but always seems to end up on top. For example, Dale's father is in jail for the millionth time. Dale's mother, Rose, is divorcing him. Several times in the book, Mo straight-out tells Rose that she is better off without her loser of a husband. In any other book, that would be so awkward and forward it would be horrible. In this one, Rose just kind of changes the subject and the story moves on. No one gets offended, no one calls Mo out. Mo's hilarious.

As for her best friend Dale, he's so funny! He has a hard time with rhetorical questions and Mo clarifies for him: "that one was rhetorical," "not rhetorical," etc, throughout the whole book - so cute! There's been a thread through both books showing his struggle with his father's criminal lifestyle. At the end of the first book Dale's mom Rose decides to divorce Dale's dad, and you see some of the emotions Dale and his family are going through but things still stay light. This book never once gets slow or depressing: it's always zany and fun. But at the same time, Turnage manages to bring across some pretty powerful emotions. I have no idea how she does it, but I absolutely love it.

I could go on about every one of the many characters in the book, but I'm sure you don't want to read about that. All I can say is, I wholeheartedly recommend this book to everyone and everyone. And I'll leave it at that, because I'm really not doing this book justice.