The quint essential annoying little brother character. While the kids are on Mars, Clark is just a clever prankster. According to Heinlein, Pod’s mother is responsible for the mess that Clark gets into because she cares too much about her career to keep her son in line. Heilein’s criticism seems to be at the very idea of a mother having a career. How f-ing creepy that is never addressed, nor does this book explore the complexities of motherhood. I am no fan of daycare, because it is better for a child to have one on one care, but in the book there is even this creepy thing at the kryo-baby place about some parents wanting their babies raised by robots for the first few months so that they don’t have to deal with the midnight feeding stage. There is no indication that she is neglectful or putting her career first. This is clearly a woman who loves her children and sacrifices her career for them. Pod says she even fusses when she is away from the babies for a few minutes. Pod’s mother cancels her consulting projects and launches into mommy mode. When the whole kryo-baby drama happens, and the family suddenly has triplets. Heinlein said that he wanted Podkayne to learn the importance of adults protecting children.Īccording to Heinlein the real problem in the story is Pod’s neglectful mother putting her career ahead of her family. I don’t usually look into what the author says about their own work but given that this book had a rewritten ending, I decided to look into it.

Pod learns the world is not a comfortable, safe place for an adventure. This is more of a sci-fi themed coming of age story. There are much better Scifi stories out there. This book isn’t bad, it’s just not great. Pod sees this trip as an adventure, but she soon realizes that Uncle Tom is keeping secrets and her brother is up to something. That’s when Uncle Tom intervenes and offers to take Pod and her brother Clark to earth himself. When the family’s vacation to earth is derailed by a mistake at the baby-kryo lab, Podkayne suddenly has no trip to earth and three baby siblings to help look after.

Podkayne of mars