Car Pool

It's the 1950s, and Verne Barrat is just trying to get through her day like any other suburban mother. But when alien children from the planet Hiserea begin attending the local school, the simple act of car pooling becomes a battlefield of maternal anxiety and creeping unease. The Hiserean kids are strange in ways both subtle and unsettling, and the other mothers in Verne's circle have opinions about everything from where the children sit to what (or whether) they should be fed. Brown uses this deceptively simple premise to slice open the comfortable assumptions of postwar American life, asking uncomfortable questions about who gets welcomed into the fold and who remains forever alien. Verne finds herself caught between the easy consensus of her neighbors and something she can't quite name in herself. A compact, sharp piece of early science fiction that treats the cosmic with the domestic, "Car Pool" is a reminder that the most frightening invasions often arrive in the family sedan.