📚 Book🎬 Tweens · Ages 11–13Humor

The True Meaning of Smekday (2007)

About This Book

When an alien race called the Boov invades Earth and relocates all humans to Florida, eleven-year-old Gratuity "Tip" Tucci sets off on a road trip to find her abducted mother, accompanied by a fugitive alien named J.Lo who is terrible at everything except being accidentally endearing. Rex writes with manic comic energy, packing every chapter with absurd situations, sharp social commentary, and a friendship that sneaks up on you and hits you right in the heart. The book is laugh-out-loud funny on nearly every page.

Why It's a Classic

Adam Rex pulled off something incredibly ambitious: he wrote a wildly entertaining alien invasion comedy that is simultaneously a pointed satire of colonialism, forced relocation, and the erasure of Indigenous cultures, drawing explicit parallels between the Boov's treatment of humans and European colonization of the Americas. Tip is a biracial girl (her mother is Barbadian) whose perspective as a person of color dealing with alien invaders adds layers of irony that most invasion stories completely miss. J.Lo, the alien, is one of the great comic creations in children's literature, mangling English in ways that are both hilarious and oddly poetic. The book trusts its young readers to understand satire and allegory without ever stopping to explain itself, which is a rare and admirable form of respect.

Fun Fact

The book was adapted into the 2015 DreamWorks animated film "Home," but the movie changed so much of the story that Rex has been diplomatically ambivalent about it. Rex is also an acclaimed illustrator who created the artwork for the picture book "Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich." Tip was one of the first biracial protagonists in mainstream children's science fiction, and Rex fought to keep her ethnicity consistent in marketing materials.

Parent Note

The book's satire of colonialism is sharp and occasionally pointed, drawing explicit parallels to the treatment of Native Americans. The humor keeps the tone light even when the subject matter is serious. The DreamWorks film "Home" is very different from the book, so kids who have seen the movie should expect a smarter, funnier, and more layered experience.