30 Day Book Challenge: Day 24 — A Book That You Wish More People Would Have Read

I loved this book, and definitely not enough people have read it:

The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex

There are lots of great reasons to read this book:

5. It’s sci-fi written for children, which is unusual.

4. It’s dystopian written for children (not aimed at teens)— rare.

3. It’s hilarious. I mean laugh-out-loud funny, the entire way through.

2. It’s really heartwarming and lovely, even while being over the top in its eccentricity.

The number one reason:

1. The protagonist is a whip-smart, resilient, half-black, half-Italian little girl. For anyone who’s been paying attention to what’s going on in the YA/children’s book world, there has been a huge push for more diversity in literature aimed at young people. It’s so important for a reader to be able to see themselves in characters, especially main characters. And while it’s definitely true that there are many, many ways in which you can relate to a character, diversity in skin color among characters in children’s and teen lit has been sorely lacking. A great way to support this push is to read authors who are already writing people of color into their books. So… Read this book! It’s fantastic writing, and a wonderful story, and you won’t regret it.

Curious about the rest of my answers? Find a list of them here.