The Neddiad

Author: Daniel Pinkwater

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Publication Year: 2007

Most of the readers will be: 4th through 7th grade girls and boys.

Reader's Advisory: For another totally weird book in which a kid saves the world, please read The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex. 

Summary: 

Neddie and his family move by train from Chicago to Los Angeles. On the way Neddie acquires a sacred turtle sculpture, gets separated from his family, meets a movie star and his son, meets a ghost, sees the Grand Canyon...and that's all before he even gets to LA. Soon he realizes there are people after his sacred turtle, and he must protect it. The fate of the world is in his hands. 

My favorite passage:

We also played Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and Superman, and Captain Midnight, which were movies and radio programs. The thing about all these games was that they were all about adventure. They were all about people going off away from their familiar homes to do important stuff. And in the world outside the backyards, it was like that. People were going off to war, and moving to different parts of the country to do different jobs. And people were arriving from places far away. Some of the kids were refugees - that is, kids whose families had escaped from Europe. There was Jan the Dutch kid, who always wore this brown overcoat, and Helmut the German kid, who refused to play Nazis in the battle games, and Luigi, whose salami sandwiches smelled better than ours.
I expected, we all expected, to do exciting things, and be a hero, like Dart-Onion, or Hopalong Cassidy, or the Count of Monte Cristo. This is why going away on a big adventure all the way across the country seemed normal to me. It is also why, when I was taken to the Louis B. Nettelhorst Elementary School to begin first grade, I said I wanted to major in literature. (pg 15-16)

What I really think:

This book is so delightfully strange. Neddie does a number of things that any kid would love to do and he has this great kid enthusiasm about it. He rides on a train across the country, he finds neat shops in LA - one that sells jokes and one that has taxidermied animals and artifacts called "Stuffed Stuff and Stuff," he swims in an abandoned pool, he visits a circus training facility, and he loves the La Brea Tar Pits. The book could have been all anecdotes of cool things Neddie did and I probably wouldn't have gotten tired of reading it. 

But then there is the weird stuff: Melvin the shaman who keeps popping up and giving Neddie, first the turtle, and then cryptic advice. The sacred turtle itself. Billy the Phantom Bellboy - yup, he's a ghost. Alien police. And the whole threat of the resurgence of the ice age.

I don't know how anyone would ever even think to write a story like this, but I'm so glad he did, because I loved every page of it. 

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Author: Sherman Alexie

Illustrator: Ellen Forney

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Publication Year: 2007

Most of the readers will be: Middle and high school boys.

Reader's Advisory: For another juvenile novel on the topic of Native Americans read Native Americans: A Novelized Memoir by Isaac McCoy.

Summary:
In spite of multiple physical problems caused by being born with water on the brain, Junior has grown into a teenager with a lot of promise. Unfortunately, he lives on the Spokane Indian Reservation and people who stay on the reservation rarely do much with their lives. Junior makes the big decision to attend high school in a neighboring town outside "the rez." Many of the people from his town of Wellpinit feel that he has betrayed them and his new classmates are slow to accept him. Can Junior balance his two worlds and still be true to himself?

My favorite passage:

And do you know what the very best thing was about Wellpinit?
My grandmother.
She was amazing.
She was the most amazing person in the world.
Do you want to know the very best thing about my grandmother?
She was tolerant.
And I know that's a hilarious thing to say about your grandmother.
I mean, when people compliment their grandmothers, especially their Indian grandmothers, they usually say things like, "My grandmother is so wise" and "My grandmother is so kind" and "My grandmother has seen everything."
And, yeah, my grandmother was smart and kind and had traveled to about 100 different Indian reservations, but that had nothing to do with her greatness.
My grandmother's greatest gift was tolerance.
Now, in the old days, Indians used to be forgiving of any kind of eccentricity. In fact, weird people were often celebrated.
Epileptics were often shamans because people just assumed that God gave seizure-visions to the lucky ones.
Gay people were seen as magical, too.
I mean, like in many cultures, men were viewed as warriors and women were viewed as caregivers. But gay people, being both male and female, were seen as both warriors and caregivers.
Gay people could do anything. They were like Swiss Army knives!
My grandmother had no use for all the gay bashing and homophobia in the world, especially among other Indians.
"Jeez," she said. "Who cares if a man wants to marry another man? All I want to know is who's going to pick up all the dirty socks?"
Of course, ever since white people showed up and brought along their Christianity and their fears of eccentricity, Indians have gradually lost all of their tolerance.
Indians can be just as judgmental and hateful as any white person.
But not my grandmother.
She still hung onto that old-time Indian spirit, you know?
She always approached each new person and each new experience the exact same way.
Whenever we went to Spokane, my grandmother would talk to anybody, even the homeless people, even the homeless guys who were talking to invisible people.
My grandmother would start talking to the invisible people, too.
Why would she do that?
"Well," she said, "how can I be sure there aren't invisible people in the world? Scientists didn't believe in the mountain gorilla for hundreds of years. And now look. So if scientists can be wrong, then all of us can be wrong. I mean, what if all of those invisible people ARE scientists? Think about that one." (pg 154-156)

What I really think:
I did find one inconsistency which isn't really relevant to the storyline, but I am sort of surprised neither the author or editor caught it. Early on in the story, Junior opens up his geography book to see the words "This Book Belongs To Agnes Adams" (pg 31). And he says that that is his mother. Adams is his mother's maiden name. But then he calls his grandmother "Grandmother Spirit." Spirit is his last name, so the name his mother took from his father. And Grandmother Spirit is supposed to be his mother's mother. So really, her last name should be Adams, and not Spirit. There could be some sort of explanation, but none was given.
I don't need to tell you that this is a good book, because it already won the National Book Award. But yes, it is wonderful. Not only does Alexie give us a window into reservation life, but he also creates a character that the average teenager can relate to. Not all of us had to deal with the exact same issues as Junior, but we did all have to move between different worlds even if those worlds were only the world of children and the world of adults.

The True Meaning of Smekday

Author: Adam Rex

Publisher: Hyperion Books for Children

Publication Year: 2007

Lexile: 730L (This book is not in the Lexile Book Database. I used the Lexile Analyzer to get this value.)

Most of the readers will be: Late elementary and middle school girls and some boys. (Some high schoolers might even get into it, Gratuity acts much older than her age.)

Reader's Advisory: For a book from the alien's point of view, read Dude, Where's my Spaceship? by Dan Greenburg.

Summary:
Gratuity "Tip" Tucci starts out writing about Smekday for a competition to have her essay included in a time capsule. Smekday is the day the Boov invaded Earth (now named Smekland). Tip has a special take on the events surrounding Smekday and the days that follow. Her mother was abducted before Smekday and the Boov implanted a glowing mole on her back to help them learn English and Italian from her. On Smekday, they take Tip's mother away in a ship and Tip is not sure if she will see her again. On Moving Day (the day the Boov tell all the Americans they have to move to Florida) Tip decides to drive herself instead of taking one of the Boov's pods. In the course of her journey, she meets J.Lo., a Boov hiding from his own people because of a terrible mistake he has made. Tip and J.Lo. arrive in Florida only to find that the humans have been relocated again, this time to Arizona. And the Boov are no longer the only aliens interested in taking over Earth (or Smekland).

My favorite passage:

"Fhf. Boovworld had once five million channels beforeto the Purging."
"The what?"
"The Purging."
"Purging."
"Yes. In the Purging, all channels but one were eliminatited, to prevents death of society."
"Oh. Yeah. People are always going on about how TV is going to ruin Earth, too."
"Is well proven. Let us say, after televisions are invented, that there is only then a few channels. Three or four. We will call them A, G, Semicolon, and Pointy."
"How about we call them A, B, C . . . and ABC."
"Whatevers. Let us now think of these channels as like four cups filled with eggs. Cup A holds inside News eggs, and Sport eggs, and Variety Show eggs. Cup B has News and Animated Story eggs and Situationally Comedic eggs. So on. More big cups are added because peoples want More Choices."
"Uh-huh."
"Soon it is noticed that between the cups there is room for smaller cups.
"These cannot hold much. Maybies there is one with only News eggs all the time. Maybies one with only Funny. But maybies Funny is your favorite sort of egg, so you like this cup.
"Then even smaller cups are made for inbetween the small cups and even smaller between those. The more cups, the more new gaps to fill. Every kind of show is invented. Shows like Pillowbusters! And What Are People Willing to Put in Their Mouths? Or The Week in Balancing, or Watch Out, Baby Animals! Cavalcade, Big Celebrity Poomps, Guy on a Table . . . lots of shows."
"So what was the problem?" I asked.
"It went out of control," said J.Lo. "Shows had to be recorded whilst even more shows were watched. Not enough time for seeing everything a Boov wanted to see, so some had to quit their jobs, or hires someone to watch for them,"
"Um . . ."
"Televisional scientists theorized a point into the future when each and everys Boov has his own show, and this show only shows him watching shows. So HighBoov decree: no more television but what the HighBoov say. And the HighBoov mostly say cooking shows." (pg 243-245)

What I really think:
This is one of those books where the main character (Gratuity) is supposed to be 11, but she acts a lot older most of the time. She drives, she looks out for her mother, she looks out for J.Lo., she saves the world from aliens, etc. I don't see a problem with this. Some 11 year olds do have to take care of their parents. And, most 11 year olds probably think they could drive or save the world from aliens given the chance.

In addition to being really entertaining, this book contains some smart social commentary. The Boov rename Christmas "Smekday," just like Christians renamed the holidays that existed before Christmas. The Boov designate small areas of land for humans and believe they are being generous. Sound like the early Americans and the American Indians?

If you read the book and want more Boov, check out this website: The National Time Capsule Project