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Summary
Summary
Milo doesn't get it: What's the big deal about moms? They're just slave-driving broccoli 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! That's quite a long way to come for a mom-could it be that Milo has been overlooking something special?
Author Notes
Berkeley Breathed is an American cartoonist, children's book author/illustrator, director, and screenwriter, best known for Bloom County, a 1980s cartoon-comic strip. Bloom County earned Berkeley the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1987. He replaced the Bloom County strip with the surreal Sunday-only cartoon, Outland in 1989, which featured some of the Bloom County characters. Eight years later, Berkeley began producing the comic strip, Opus, a Sunday-only strip featuring Opus the Penguin.
In addition to his cartoon work, he has also produced seven children's books, two of which, A Wish for Wings That Work and Edwurd Fudwupper Fibbed Big, were made into animated films. Berkeley's writing has also been featured in numerous publications, including Life, Boating, and Travel and Leisure.
Berkeley lives with his family in Southern California.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 3-Milo just doesn't get what's so special about moms. As far as he can see, all they do is nag you to eat your broccoli and send you up to bed when you tint your little sister purple. So who needs them? Well, as it turns out, Martians do (they "grow motherless from the ground like potatoes") and one night, three Martians sneak into Milo's house and steal his sleeping mother. The boy races after them, grabs onto the ladder of their spaceship, and boards it just as it blasts off. Once on Mars, he looks outside and finally understands why the Martians need a mom so badly-"They needed driving to soccer! And to ballet! And to playdates, parks, and pizzas! Plus cooking and cleaning and dressing and packing lunches and bandaging boo-boos!" Just then, he trips and falls and is saved by-you guessed it! And the sympathetic aliens take the boy and his mother home. The story ends with Milo waking up in his mother's bed, cuddling next to her. In typical Breathed form, the illustrations are lush, plush, and over-the-top with color, attitude, and craziness. The picture of the Martians trying to bait a mom with what looks suspiciously like a brand name Grande coffee on a line is hilarious, to say the least. Share this witty and sweet tale with young readers and their moms for a wacky treat.-Lisa Gangemi Kropp, Middle Country Public Library, Centereach, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
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.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
A little boy named Milo often wonders: what's so special about mothers? But when Martians kidnap his mom, Milo is dramatically reminded of her undying love. Breathed's occasional black-and-white sketches (he's the creator of the Bloom County comics) are more appealing than the garish digital main art. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
In a typically frenetic outing, the creator of the "Bloom County" and "Outland" comic strips pays tribute to motherhood. Though resentfully regarding Moms as "giant, summer-stealing, child-working, perfumy garden goblins," Milo gives interplanetary chase when his own mom is abducted by Martians. They, as it turns out, have no mothers of their own, and so no one to do the housework or the driving to soccer practice and playdates. Only when he breaks his filched space helmet and his mother nearly makes the ultimate sacrifice to save him does the lad (and the chastened Martians) come to realize that Momhood includes loving him, as she puts it, "to the ends of the universe." Breathed places digitally painted caricatures--including some comically ugly humans, jellybean-hued Monsters, Inc.-style aliens and a short blond lad with a graceful, gorgeous mother--against elaborate, out-of-focus backgrounds. He closes with a cozy scene of mother and child snuggled together in their Earthly bed, oblivious to a trio of antennaed peeping toms peering sentimentally through the window. Not exactly subtle, but likely to earn a chuckle or two from the No, David! crowd. (Picture book. 6-8) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Milo doesn't see what's so great about mothers. After all, his makes him eat his broccoli and carrots and do chores around the house and garden. When Martian raiders arrive and abduct the mothers, Milo steals on board their spaceship and discovers why the moms have been kidnapped: so that they can drive the Martians to their Martian soccer games in their Martian vans, pack lunches, and put Band-Aids on cuts. When Milo's oxygen supply is nearly cut off, his mom is there to save him, and he finds new appreciation for mothers. The colorful, almost three-dimensional computer-generated art, interspersed with old-fashioned black-and-white line drawings, are the highlight here. The Martians are suitably comical, and the pages are filled with subtle little jokes, including plenty for adults (e.g., the Martians use Starbucks coffee to lure the moms onto their spaceship). Funny and visually striking. --Todd Morning Copyright 2007 Booklist