Two years after the alien Boov invasion (The True Meaning of Smekday), Gratuity "Tip" Tucci and her Boov pal J.Lo are ready for another road trip--to New Boovworld. All does not go according to plan: J.Lo is arrested, and Tip winds up in a garbage pit. Rex packs his witty sequel with loads of action and a steady spotlight on friendship.

In Rex's madcap follow-up to his alien invasion novel The True Meaning of Smekday (2007), 13-year-old Gratuity (aka Tip) agrees to take a secret trip with her alien friend, J.Lo, to Saturn to visit New Boovworld. A pariah for accidentally betraying the Boov during their invasion of Earth, J.Lo (a Boov himself) hopes to clear his name with their leader, Captain Smek. Almost immediately the plan backfires. Smek, who is in the midst of a political campaign, decides that capturing J.Lo would earn him more votes than pardoning him. An escape attempt separates the friends, leaving J.Lo in custody and Tip on the lam and on rescue detail. With the story narrated by Gratuity, humor abounds in her tone, the plot high jinks, the low gravity, and J.Lo's stumbling English: "Ha! This is one of those humansjokes I do not get?" Illustrations and comic spreads enhance the already entertaining narrative and add to its adventurous feel. Light political satire mixes with action, death rays, and time travel, making this book a smart, fun ride.

Gr 4-8 After successfully banishing the Gorg and ruining the Boovs's plans to colonize planet Earth, J.Lo and Gratuity (Tip to her friends) are back in this sequel to The True Meaning of Smekday (Hyperion, 2007). The Boov, dumpy little aliens who find English grammar amusingly challenging, have now settled, somewhat peevishly, on one of Saturn's moons. J.Lo, and Tip board J.Lo's converted Chevy spacecraft, Slushious, and blast off to New Boovworld, only to find themselves on the run from the police and Captain Smek, who is now campaigning to become New Boovworld's first president. Rex is a comic genius who has created a laugh- and groan-out-loud novel filled with spaceship chases, bubbling billboards, villainous villains, and reluctant heroes to say nothing of rousing games of Stickyfish and the obligatory garbage pit. Hilarious cartoons will please graphic novel aficionados. Don't skip Appendix A: Rules for Stickyfish.— Jane Henriksen Baird, Anchorage Public Library, AK