Joan Cusack

Take out the trash, eat your broccoli. Who needs moms, anyway? Nine-year-old Milo finds out just how much he needs his mom when she's nabbed by Martians, who plan to steal her mom-ness for their own young. Milo's quest to save his mom involves stowing away on a spaceship, navigating an elaborate, multi-level planet, and taking on the alien nation and their leader.

An unlikely love story developes when a cynical, big-city columnist comes to a small town to cover the story of Maggie Carpenter, a bride who's left men at the altar several times.

Disillusioned journalist Tom Langdon must get from Washington, D.C., to L.A. in time for Christmas. Forced to travel by train, he begins a journey of rude awakenings, thrilling adventures, and holiday magic. He has no idea that the locomotives pulling him across America will actually take him into the rugged terrain of his own heart, as he rediscovers people's essential goodness and someone very special he believed he had lost.