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#5 Platform - The True Meaning of Smekday
Jan. 28th, 2012 02:51 pmWhen aliens collide.
Book #5: The True Meaning of Smekday
Author: Adam Rex
Provenance: Borrowed from Westmount Library
I've read a lot of stories about aliens coming to Earth and what happens, but I've really never read anything like this one. Here we have the story of Gratuity Tucci (but her friends call her Tip), an 11-year-old girl from Pennsylvania, and her trip across the US, from Pennsylvania to Florida to Arizona, in the wake of an alien race, the Boov, taking over the place. She's lost her mom, and with the help of a renegade Boov, J.Lo, she makes her way through some recognizable landmarks, such as a thinly disguised Disneyworld and Roswell, to try to track her down. In the process, she encounters a pretty wacky variety of people, Boov, and a third alien race, the Gorg, who may be even worse for the planet than the Boov were.
The writing style of the book is light and wry, with the telling of the tale taken by Tip through the course of a number of essays for a school assignment, and in the end just for herself, to get her experiences and feelings out. It's augmented with a number of pictures and little comics by J.Lo, as well, to explain the situation. In fact, Tip and J.Lo get to be pretty real, fleshed out characters over the course of the trip, growing closer over time and forming a nice friendship across species. For a book for kids, it can also get a bit dark, and the adults are definitely not in the right a lot of the time; the crew in Roswell is particularly interesting for their characterization, I think.
So the story is good, and the characters are pretty good... so why am I not ranking it higher? Well, the handling of the thematic matter in the book is really quite heavy-handed; the themes of how we treat each other and other races are really in-your-face in a way I didn't like, but maybe this is more normal for children's lit. For me, it detracted from the story some, since I felt a bit hammered with the message a few times. But overall, this was a very nice, amusing, charming book, good, I think, for kids and adults alike. I'll try another book of his pretty soon, I think.
Next up: The Influencing Machine. And the Magician King. One or the other will get done first.
Book #5: The True Meaning of Smekday
Author: Adam Rex
Provenance: Borrowed from Westmount Library
I've read a lot of stories about aliens coming to Earth and what happens, but I've really never read anything like this one. Here we have the story of Gratuity Tucci (but her friends call her Tip), an 11-year-old girl from Pennsylvania, and her trip across the US, from Pennsylvania to Florida to Arizona, in the wake of an alien race, the Boov, taking over the place. She's lost her mom, and with the help of a renegade Boov, J.Lo, she makes her way through some recognizable landmarks, such as a thinly disguised Disneyworld and Roswell, to try to track her down. In the process, she encounters a pretty wacky variety of people, Boov, and a third alien race, the Gorg, who may be even worse for the planet than the Boov were.
The writing style of the book is light and wry, with the telling of the tale taken by Tip through the course of a number of essays for a school assignment, and in the end just for herself, to get her experiences and feelings out. It's augmented with a number of pictures and little comics by J.Lo, as well, to explain the situation. In fact, Tip and J.Lo get to be pretty real, fleshed out characters over the course of the trip, growing closer over time and forming a nice friendship across species. For a book for kids, it can also get a bit dark, and the adults are definitely not in the right a lot of the time; the crew in Roswell is particularly interesting for their characterization, I think.
So the story is good, and the characters are pretty good... so why am I not ranking it higher? Well, the handling of the thematic matter in the book is really quite heavy-handed; the themes of how we treat each other and other races are really in-your-face in a way I didn't like, but maybe this is more normal for children's lit. For me, it detracted from the story some, since I felt a bit hammered with the message a few times. But overall, this was a very nice, amusing, charming book, good, I think, for kids and adults alike. I'll try another book of his pretty soon, I think.
Next up: The Influencing Machine. And the Magician King. One or the other will get done first.
