The True Meaning of Smekday

Winner of the American Library Association's 2011 Odyssey Award given to the producer of the best audiobook for children and/or young adults, Adam Rex's The True Meaning of Smekday is now available on CD from Listening Library.

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? 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. This is a hilarious, perceptive, genre-bending novel by a remarkable new talent.