BOOK TALK: The True Meaning of Smekday

I always like jumping in to a new book that has a lot of fun ideas and excellent execution of them. When I really start enjoying such books, time seems to fly and I blaze through them at a voracious rate (at least for me). When doing the reverse, reading a book that I do not enjoy, I tend to move through them at a pace not unlike a sloth, growing moss in between my turning of every page.

The former is definitely the case here with The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex!

For those who want to get a rough ‘feel’ for the kind of book this is, here is the synopsis from Amazon:

“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? Or when the Boov declared Earth a colony, renamed it "Smekland" (in honor of glorious Captain Smek), and forced all Americans to relocate to Florida via rocketpod?

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 book was not only fun to read, it was also filled with interesting concepts and different ways of telling a story. One of the more endearing traits of the book is the selection of photographs (drawings) given throughout of all the sights and strange people that Gratuity meets, showing just how much the planet has changed and NOT changed. It was also truly funny, with many laugh-out-loud moments that feel absolutely natural for the world that we’re presented with. There are just so many fun quotes that could be pulled out of the text, many of them from the alien character, J.Lo, but I don’t want to spoil the discovery of them.

The fantastic thing about the whole journey of this book, however, is that none of the content feels ‘forced’.

Everything is presented through the eyes of the main character and we’re given her insight on many things in the world, but we’re not force-fed what we’re supposed to take away from the story. Gratuity herself even talks to the audience about how she isn’t sure of the moral of the story that she’s telling, but only that she has to tell it.

I want to end this discussion right here to tell folks to give this book a read, but I would be remiss if I didn’t give a little more in-depth discussion on some of the things presented in this book. For those who don’t want some aspects of the story inevitably spoiled, don’t look any further!

Of COURSE my first ever 'selfie' is with an alien. Wasn't yours?

The Anthro Element

Before anybody asks, no, there are no talking animals in this book. However, there ARE talking, sentient, non-human lifeforms, and that makes them no less anthropomorphic than Mickey Mouse. In fact, the aliens in this book, known as the Boov, are perfect examples of many of the concepts we’ve talked about with anthropomorphic characters and ideas.

The Boov spend the majority of the book trying to understand human beings, or at least try to figure out how they can build a society around them. There are a lot of parallels to the conquest and discovery of America, right down to the Boov renaming earth and its people after the captain who ‘discovered’ the world. The story draws even clearer lines by moving all of the people in America to a single state, greatly reducing the amount of land that they used to own. It sort of reaches its peak when Gratuity finds a large number of well-off Americans living in casinos, but I think it’s almost a joke for the observant reader by that point, as the plot was focusing more on threats to the world rather than America being ‘occupied.’

The Boov are most definitely fascinating to look at from an anthro perspective, though. Not only do they look radically different from human beings, but their diets and the values they consider to be important are completely different as well. As the story goes on, we learn more and more about the Boov values, eventually even getting an entire origin story for the species and how they started space-faring. This is all presented to Gratuity, who is young enough that her view of the world is a very open one, and so we get a lot of her asking questions and trying to present the values of humans in comparison to the Boov. It ends up being not only funny, but also a great period of character building for both her and her new friend J.Lo. J.Lo starts to take on and understand human values like the connection between a mother and a daughter (his people are born from eggs and relatively abandoned by their biological mothers), and Gratuity starts to see through some of the initial fears and prejudices they all had about the Boov.

As this book concerns itself so much with how the different species on Smekland/Earthland interact and communicate, I think it’s an absolutely ideal piece of anthropomorphic fiction.

Quibbles

Of course, The True Meaning of Smekland is not a perfect book. As I mentioned above, some might find the parallels between the conquest of the Boov and the conquest of the Americas to be a little too heavy-handed. While I feel they are well-handled in general, there is most definitely a bit of bias towards Native Americans, as the only Native American in the entire book is also the only adult that isn’t absolutely loony and useless to most of Gratuity’s needs.

Speaking of adults, the way adults are handled in this book is also a little grating at times. While the tone IS consistent, it does get a little frustrating to frequently see an adult appear in Gratuity’s path and discover that they are yet another childishly-minded and selfish individual. To be fair, though, most of the kids she encounters are just as bad, so it’s more of a case of the world going mad and probably less of a direct bias against adults.

Despite these nitpicks, the story is still fantastic and has a brisk, lively pace that feels good and satisfying to read. The pictures are all well-done and the world-building is amazing, considering that the story is on a world that one would assume to already know fairly well.

Seriously, the art in this book is incredible! There's tons of it!

And, like many good Middle-Grade novels, The True Meaning of Smekday is already slated for a film adaptation! I didn’t know this until about halfway through the book, so I’m filled with both anxiety and excitement. If you’ve ever read and enjoyed a book before seeing the movie announcement, you’ll probably know what I mean.

The movie is going to be called “Home” and you can find teaser trailers for it online as of this posting. Go ahead and check it out, and see if you can finish the book before the movie comes out and creates a blockbuster rush for copies!

For next month, we’re going to be trying a bit of a topic that I’ve been wanting to present on this blog for quite a while: Anthropomorphic Graphic Novels and Comics. If you love good art and stories together, be sure to keep a look out! I’ll be pointing out my favorites and looking to discover new ones.

Until next time, happy reading, all!

-Chammy

The Clothes Make the ma... er... Animal-Man?

A few friends have brought up a fun subject to me recently that I’m surprised doesn’t get talked about more often in anthropomorphic animal media: Clothing.

More specifically, they ask how clothing should work in a world of animal people.

Some may think that it’s an easy answer, because we’ve seen it a million times in sci-fi anthro video game designs and many anthro animal comics. Typically, these animals are just put into normal clothes with tail holes and sometimes shoes fitted for their specific feet or helmets fitted for their ears. Basically, the artists give minor adjustments to human clothing to suit their needs. In many cases with cartoon animals, the artists even forgo articles of clothing entirely, giving the anthro animal nothing more than a pair of gloves or a shirt.

*gasp* Scandalous!

On the surface, this is fine! After all, the focus in such stories should be on the characters and not what they wear, right?

But why don’t we think about this with more depth? What sorts of things could be done if one were to truly think about clothing designed entirely for a different race like, say, anthropomorphic felines or dogs? Human clothing is designed for human needs, so shouldn’t anthro animal clothing be designed with the same thought behind it?

I recently saw some comments relating to one of the most common anthro clothing designs, the tail hole. You know, that hole that just exists on the pants of fully clothed anthro characters that their tails just so perfectly fit through and operate without obstruction? The first was a suggestion for something called a ‘tail sleeve’, which sounded and looked a lot more comfortable than a simple hole. The sleeve design was pretty much what it sounded like, being a sleeve for tails much like our shirt sleeves are for arms. It allowed for comfort, a fair amount of maneuverability, and, best of all, no massive hole showing your underwear to the world. The idea was fair, as we wouldn’t very well publically wear a speedo for everyday clothing that only ends where our legs begin, would we? Well… most of us wouldn’t, at least. Thinking of the tail as an extra leg kind of helps to think about how clothing designed for it might actually work.

The second discussion that I saw was actually one given by a game character in the Namco RPG Tales of Rebirth. One of the main characters, an anthro panther named Eugene Gallardo, is asked by his new human friends about his unique covering for his tail, which looks like a long ornate sock. He goes on to describe how it’s a common mark of a gentleman in his culture, and that such coverings were very popular, not unlike the ties that humans so often wear. It’s a short discussion, but a unique one that you don’t often see in RPGs with such animal characters. We get a brief glimpse at this panther’s home culture and the culture of beastmen at large as it relates to our own.

It's tough to find a good picture of Eugene's 'tail sock',
but you can still see it behind him here.
Plus, he gets to look awesome as a bonus.

Topics like these are what make my mind swirl with excitement for the possibilities in good anthropomorphic literature. It would be so very interesting to get a look at something that’s, frankly, so alien to us, seeing stores with a ‘tail sock’ section and seeing clothing and jewelry with cultural significance that makes sense for these animal races. For instance, what about a store that sells fragrances to dogs, since scent is such a large part of their everyday lives, or how headphones would be logically designed for a race of rabbits? It takes real creativity to play around in that realm and make it sound perfectly natural at the same time. It really surprises me to not see this topic come up more in anthropomorphic literature.

Of course, I can understand why more authors don’t go into such details with their animal races. Unless those characters are central to the story as a race, those kinds of descriptions can bog down a story and lose readers who just want to focus on the characters’ interactions and their adventures in the world.

Still, it’s that potential for creativity that really should make the genre stand out and make these animal characters feel less like fictional creations and more like living, breathing people with their own lives.

I’d be very interested in seeing any stories that have such detail in them. I recall one sci-fi story that involved a quadruped, feline alien race that had a ship and spacesuits built entirely for their unique movements and body shapes, but I don’t recall the title, as it was many years ago.

If any of you readers know of any stories that explore this or have your own opinions or experiences with this subject, feel free to share them!

I dunno... I don't think this look is really 'me'.

Until next time, happy reading, all!

-Chammy

Currently Reading:

The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex

BOOK TALK: The Last Wild

Awesome Cover, by the way. I do love the art style.

The Last Wild, by Piers Torday, is a story about a boy by the name of Kester Jaynes. The world that Kester lives in no longer has any animals, as they have all been wiped out by a disease known as the red-eye. With the animals disappearing, and most farmable crops following shortly after, the planet itself starts to descend into shambles, and the world that Kester knows now is one of metal, dirt, and grey. A miraculous thing awakens in Kester, however, and he learns that he can communicate with cockroaches, among other such creatures that clung on to life. They lead him to a mysterious grove where the last of all the animals on earth are hiding, and these animals ask Kester to find a cure and to save the Wild, as he’s the only one who understands them, and the only one who can accomplish this grand goal. So begins Kester’s journey.

It’s difficult for me to give a proper look at The Last Wild. My views are a little skewed because this book was recommended to me by a good friend and I went in with high expectations. The quotes on the back of the book don’t help either, as they compare moments in this book to James and the Giant Peach, which is a classic piece of children’s literature. Of course, one should never, ever read a book with the mindset of the praise printed on the cover. It is what’s inside the book that truly counts.

And, inside this book, I do not believe we have a classic piece of children’s literature.

It pains me to say it, but The Last Wild felt less than stellar and ended up making me more frustrated with it than absorbed in it. However, to be fair and to make sure you don’t entirely get the wrong idea from me, here a few things that I really loved about the book:

The Roach was my favorite character, by the way.
"I have secured the perimeter, soldier! Now, let's scout the refrigerator!"

The Premise – The premise of this book was absolutely engrossing. Aside from the great backdrop of humanity pretty much being doomed through a single, uncontrollable disease that kills not them, but everything around them, the hero is also excellently set up. Kester is a kid that is easily related to, being something of an outcast and having a strong desire for his family while also being prone to his own faults. To make him even better, though, Kester is also pretty much a mute. He can’t talk to a single human being, adult or otherwise, and the only creatures that can understand him and communicate with him are animals, who happen to want Kester to be their spokesperson to the world. The entire thing is a great design of creating problems and learning how to overcome them to achieve greater goals.

The Animal Element- Care really felt like it was taken in this book to show how the animals deal with the same kind of problems that humans deal with, but in different ways. There was a lot of neat stuff about how the animals would communicate with one another or have their own hierarchy and traditions that were alien to Kester in their execution, but emotionally relatable. This is what good anthropomorphic fiction can really bring to light and play with, and I’m very glad The Last Wild did just that. All of the animal characters in this book were very cool in this regard.

The Action- Oddly enough, I wasn’t expecting this book to have a lot of high-octane scenes to it, but it really did. From fighting against river rapids to out-running a crazy one-legged German man who shot bullets from his crutches, there was a ton of excitement in this book, and even a few fight scenes. They were all done quite well and really were a lot of fun. Near the climax, where the evil one-legged German is facing off against Kester’s entire animal party, it definitely held my attention!

Even with all that, though, The Last Wild left something of a bad taste in my mouth. The thing about the points I liked best in the book is that they were often countered by things that would go exactly against them. The best example I can explain is how the animals were treated during the book. For much of the novel, they’re shown as having their own society and rules and ways of doing things, and they are very opposed to being told to do something contrary to their beliefs. By about the halfway point in the book, however, Kester nearly practices mind-control on the animals, calling them to his aid like Aquaman would call a school of fish, and they would mostly go along without question. This is somewhat explained early on by Kester being proclaimed to have appeared in this great vision that every animal is made aware of, but it’s not dealt with consistently. Animals that want nothing to do with Kester at first eventually decide to follow and obey him without conflict, and he does so very little to earn that kind of respect. It’s upsetting when the animals stop feeling like thinking characters and just become tools for Kester to use.

And before anyone asks, yes, I think Aquaman has cool powers,
but he's still the last guy you call when you're going to fight on the moon.

What really tore me out of the book, aside from that issue, was a section of the book where the author seemed to throw common sense out the window in favor of making a statement. I ended up calling this part simply ‘The Farm Scene’. I’ll set it up for you:

Kester and his newfound human friend, Polly, are picked up by a seemingly friendly lady who goes by the name of ‘Ma’. She sees that Polly is injured and that Kester is travelling with a herd of animals and she offers to help the both of them out. We get a little bit of insight about Ma’s character, but we do learn that she has a lot of experience with animals and farming in the past. As we’re learning this, she drives the kids to her home city, which Polly describes as ‘the biggest farm in the world’. When they arrive, everybody is extremely happy to see them and very friendly, communicating well with the animals and being amazed at the sight of them as well. Of course, in typical fairy tale fashion, the people are not as kindly as they seem. The kids are barely out of Ma’s truck for ten minutes before they’re captured by the townspeople and thrown into a cell. The animals are likewise captured and put into pens, jars, cages, etc.

I’ve no problem with this part, as it’s quite intense and shows just how horrible and untrustworthy the world has become. The tension leading up to all of this is great. It’s what comes next that made my view of the book plummet.

After the kids are locked up in their cell and left alone, they soon make up their minds to break out of there and rescue the animals. That’s a great start! How do they go about doing this, though? Do they try to trick the guards of the cell into letting them out? Do they find a weak spot in the walls and bust through? Do they use Kester’s power to call upon some underground force of ants or worms or other creatures to help them out, as they’ve recently shown he can do?

Nah! They just pick up a shovel that was luckily left laying against the wall inside their cell and smash down the door. Then they walk out of their prison, which of course has nobody guarding them, and make a big show of sneaking around and avoiding detection while trying to find out where the leader of the animals, the Stag, is being kept. They don’t find him immediately, but what they do find is a massive bonfire where everybody is dancing and playing music and preparing for a grand event. Ma comes forward once Kester and Polly get close and she shares with the entire village their plans for the captured animals.

So now we get to see what this has all been leading up to. Why Ma lied and (poorly) imprisoned our heroes and showed such glee over the animals! Now, I would like you to keep a few things in mind here. First, it has been established that this entire village, which has been described as the biggest farm in the world, has a population made up almost entirely of farmers or children raised by farmers. Second, it has been said by Ma many times by this point that the people of this village are very good with animals, and she even makes a point in her speech of talking about how they lost livestock and pets to the red-eye disease. Third, the entire world has been considered essentially barren of natural resources for over six years by now. The only things that seem to grow are grass, weeds, and some barely edible plantlife. Finally, Kester came into town with a stag, a wolf, a cockroach, a mouse, and a flock of pigeons.

Knowing all of this, what comes out of Ma’s mouth next made my brain stop: They want to eat all of Kester’s animals.

That’s it. That’s the entire reason for all of this. These people who used to tend to the land for a living and have somehow been managing out in the wastelands for years find a resource that they thought was extinct, and their first thought is a massive hog-roast? These farmers have no interest in learning where these animals came from, how to get more of them, or to try and breed and raise the ones that they have? The pigeons alone could be bred for food, if that was their entire aim. Heck, the amount of meat available from the animals present wouldn’t even have fed the entire village anyways! What were they planning on doing after they finished all the meat? Just starve and wallow until the next miracle herd of animals appears? What farmers, whose entire livelihood is built around managing and cultivating resources, would act like this?

And if that logical quandary weren’t enough on its own, it starts to get even weirder. Ma starts to lead the people in a talk about the glories and wonder of meat and how much they miss it, talking about the eating of meat like its some sort of religion. Even when Kester makes himself known, Ma, after telling him that she put that shovel in their cell in the first place just so they could break out (why did they even bother with the cell, then?), invites Kester to join their ceremony and to ‘take the first cut’ like a priest telling a child to take a sip of holy wine. They bring out the Stag, who is bound up in ropes held by many men, and place a giant knife in Kester’s hand so that he can choose what part of his friend he wants to eat first. Oh, and the crowd starts chanting like a religious cult by this point too, just to make it clear how insane this is.

And what does Kester do? He cuts the ropes of course! The kid basically was riding on top of the Stag when they found him, and they put him in front of it with a knife in his hand? What did they expect him to do? And why did nobody in the entire village raise an objection to giving their previous prisoner the perfect means of escaping and helping his animals? The entire village was watching this! But there was no room for logic, of course. We needed a lecture about meat… Argh.

I don’t know if there was a vegetarian agenda here or not. It did occur to me at this point that none of the main characters (even the wolf) are shown eating any kind of meat. The wolf talks about attacking Kester a few times, but he never so much as attempts to eat one of the dozens of pigeons they have frolicking about them.

But even if there is an agenda of sort, that’s not what bothers me. Authors can share whatever message they like, I think, so long as it’s done well. This is not done well. It’s an awful, poorly thought out scene that seems to sacrifice character and story to make some kind of possible social point. And even if the author was not making a social point, the scene still is out of place and filled to the brim with plotholes. It’s scenes like these that make me honestly get angry at people who say to not take children’s literature ‘too seriously’. This is not a case of childish imagination or silly happenstances or adventures. It’s not a case of suspension of disbelief or even thinking like a child. This is a section of the book that tears away from its better parts and taints how everything else is perceived. This was the author stepping in and not the characters growing or learning.

I don’t believe that to be good writing for a novel, and it really is a shame that it effected how I read the book from there on out. There were really good ideas in this book and some very good scenes, but there were also very many shallow points and characters that were billboards rather than characters, and I mean that about characters beyond ‘the farm scene’ too. That one-legged German is a lot less interesting to read about when you realize he’s the only German in the entire book and his motivation for being unredeemably evil is basically just ‘because I hate animals’ and because he was ordered to hunt them.

There is a sequel for this book out now called The Dark Wild, and I won’t write it off solely because of my feelings about this book. In fact, it might end up being pretty awesome if Piers Torday simply builds off of the good things of the first book and goes even further now that the characters and world are established. I might honestly check it out sometime later and try to give it a fair read!

I will not tell folks to NOT read this book or pick it up. It has good stuff in it, and not everybody is going to feel the same way as me about it. You may very well enjoy yourself with it, and I dearly hope that you do! I just also hope I was able to share a bit of an opinion on the novel and get people thinking about these issues in this book and others out there.

Until next time, happy reading, all!

-Chammy