Adam Rex is rapidly becoming one of my favorite writers EVAH. His illustrations are really something to behold, somewhere between a carnival, a comic book and the Dutch Masters (yeah, that’s a big patch of turf, but check it out). And it turns out he’s a pretty good writer, too.

The first exposure I got to Adam’s work was through Pssst!, which K picked up for Z. The illustrations are awesome, with plenty of great bizarro stuff that just makes me LOL. And this has become Z’s #1 potty-book. “PSSST!!!!” is the first thing she says when she jumps on the plastic commode.

His illustrated novel, The True Meaning of Smekday, is wonderfully weird. It’s absurdly surreal, very funny and has a true-blue American protagonist. At least that’s how I would describe Gratuity Tucci. What could be more American than a multiracial alien-fighting teenage girl with a cat named Pig and a Boov named J.Lo?

“What’s a Boov?”, you say. Read the book and find out. Or you can check out the book’s companion site.

This was one of the 2007 Nebula honors nominees and I highly recommend it.