Mars Needs Moms!

Synopsis

Milo doesn’t get it: What’s the big deal about moms? They’re just slavedrivingbroccoli bullies. Yet they are worshipped the world over! Perhaps even the galaxy over—because here come Martians and they’re after one thing only: moms. Milo’s mom in particular. Who better to drive them to soccer practice and to pizza parties? That’s quite a long way to come for a mom—could it be that Milo has been overlooking something special?

From Pulitzer Prize–winning comic strip creator of Bloom County and bestselling author Berkeley Breathed comes a funny, poignant book about how the unique love that binds our families can be overlooked in the rush and tumble of everyday lives . . . especially those of disgruntled little boys.

About the Author:
Berkeley Breathed lives in California.

Publishers Weekly

In this excessive extraterrestrial fantasy, more painful than funny, Breathed (Flawed Dogs) lets readers know what mothers are for: general self-sacrifice. Towheaded hero Milo, a mischief-maker, perceives mothers as "bellowing broccoli bullies and carrot-cuddling cuckoos." Yet when Milo awakens to find Martians kidnapping his mother, he instinctively leaps aboard their ship. On the red planet, the stowaway steps outside to see an enormous Chrysler minivan loaded with aliens. Martians are keen on human females because "They needed driving to soccer!... Plus cooking and cleaning and dressing and packing lunches and bandaging boo-boos!" Milo's mother never gets to provide these services, however, since her astonished son tumbles down the spaceship stairs and breaks his bell-jar-shaped oxygen helmet. She places her own helmet on his head, feasts her loving eyes upon Milo and collapses from lack of air. Milo must rescue her in return. Breathed mockingly depicts children's love/hate relationships to disciplinarians; he matches his hyperbolic humor with distorted caricatures in radioactive hues. Milo's mother initially appears monstrous, with clotted hair, dangling curlers and an ax-murderer's slouching silhouette, but she radiates shimmering light when she saves Milo's life. On the back cover, Martians (toting a big net) wistfully gaze at gallery portraits of mothers (including Whistler's) but comedy doesn't undo the backward equation of women and domesticity. Ages 4-up. (Apr.)

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