Review: The True Meaning of Smekday

The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



The jokes are laugh-out-loud, and keep coming throughout the book. This kind of sustained comedy is unusual, especially since the funny moments here are conversational, more than just situational. There's a sense of voice and timing that worked really well for me. BTW, my daughter and I both had completely different voices for J.Lo--mine is more like Andy Kaufman's Latka and Pearl's is more of a gravelly Frank Oz. At any rate, the book was very good for read-aloud--either he's a natural or Rex really worked hard on the dialog and pace. Maybe both? There are a lot of popular authors who write page turners that just flop as read-alouds. Adam Rex made this one very friendly to perform!

I enjoyed the sprawling American setting (shown on a map on the back of the book), which was really great for supporting the underlying colonial allegory. It was really fun to see touchy historical themes such as conquest, relocation, and internment done up in comedy. When I worked in a middle school, we always tried to find the ways of talking about difficult history without making the kids dread coming to class. This book is an excellent way of showing that you can have fun without making fun of real issues. Science fiction and comedy can be a knockout combo, and I hadn't had this much fun with sci fi since Doug Adams.



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