Ricky Ricotta and his Mighty Robot battle for the safety of the solar system once again! This time, smelly Sergeant Stinkbug arrives on Earth with a plan to kidnap the king of the world, but he ends up with Ricky's little cousin Lucy instead. Now it's up to Ricky and his Robot to save Lucy and the rest of mousekind from a stinky situation! With easy-to-read language and action-packed illustrations on every page, the Ricky Ricotta books are perfect for beginning readers. It's adventure that's truly out of this world!

In all of the Ricky Ricotta books so far, Ricky's Robot has always done all the fighting, and Ricky has always used his brains to save the day. Dav Pilkey thought it might be fun to mix things up in this book by making Ricky the action hero, and giving everybody else a chance to use their brains. Click to Enlarge This seemed like a good idea to Dav, but the book gave illustrator Martin Ontiveros quite a few challenges. Martin was used to drawing Ricky small, but he didn't know how to draw Ricky's Robot small. Click to Enlarge Click to Enlarge In order to complete the illustrations, Martin needed to make some adjustments. First, Martin purchased a "Shrinky-Pig 2000" and shrunk himself down to about 10 inches tall. He then crawled up onto his drawing table and began drawing all of the tiny Robot illustrations. This process worked well for Martin, until one afternoon when Martin's two-year-old son, Felix, came into Martin's studio. Felix was playing with his toy Batmobile, and needed a doll to put in the driver's seat. Unfortunately, Felix mistook his father for a Batman action figure, grabbed him off the drawing table, and stuffed him into the car. Click to Enlarge Martin screamed and shouted, but Felix didn't understand. The laughing toddler pushed his toy Batmobile all around the house, crashing it into blocks and smashing it into furniture. After a few hours, Felix accidentally dropped the Batmobile down the stairs. The resulting accident sent Martin flying out of the toy car, across the room, and into the guest bathroom, where he promptly landed in the toilet, and was accidentally flushed down... READ THE SECOND PART OF THIS HARROWING TALE NEXT YEAR, ON THIS WEBSITE'S "BOOK PAGE" FOR RICKY RICOTTA'S MIGHTY ROBOT VS. THE URANIUM UNICORNS FROM URANUS

1. The photos in the story above were all taken by Felix's momma (and Martin's sweetheart), Micki Waddell. The next time this type of tragedy occurs, Micki has promised that she'll stop laughing, put down the camera, and help Martin. 2. Saturn is the second largest planet in our Solar System. The largest is Jupiter. 3. Saturn's rings were first observed by Galileo in 1610. The rings are made up of many different things, including dust, ice, and "mystery particles" (which may or may not include toxic smoke from stinkbug factories). 4. Lucy's mother and father (Aunt Ethyl and Uncle Freddy) were named after Fred and Ethyl Mertz, two characters from the old "I Love Lucy" TV show. 5. Here are some more facts about SATURN: AVERAGE DISTANCE FROM SUN: 887 million miles. REVOLUTION AROUND SUN: 10,747 Days (29.4 years). ROTATION: 10.7 hours. DIAMETER: 74,897 miles GRAVITY: 29.4 (ft/s2) (ABOUT 16% GREATER THAN EARTH'S GRAVITY) NUMBER OF MOONS: 31 (THE LARGEST ONE IS CALLED "TITAN") SURFACE TEMPERATURE: -220°F

• Ricky Ricotta's Mighty Robot Vs. The Stupid Stinkbugs from Saturn