Fall Reading 2013 Fortunately, the Milk

Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite authors, so I had to try out his new book. Reminiscent of And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, the father in Fortunately, the Milk has a very interesting tale to tell when he returns from an everyday errand down the street. The boy narrating the book explains that his mother is at a conference presenting a paper on lizards, so the dad is left in charge. When breakfast cannot be eaten because there is no milk for the cereal (or for dad's tea), he heads out to the store to get some. He is gone for "ages and ages." When the boy and his sister ask what took so long, the explanation involves - aliens, a spaceship, dinosaurs, a hot air balloon, a time travel machine, a volcano... You can see why the trip to the corner store took longer than expected, even when you leave out the bit about the piranhas. 

As usual, Gaiman's sense of humor pulls us into the story and has us laughing hard enough to make milk come out our noses (if we were unfortunate enough to have taken a drink while reading). The black and white line drawings by Skottie Young add a sense of manic energy to the action. If you enjoy Gaiman's other books, or stories that seem take on a life of their own, then you should definitely read this.

The publishers in the UK have provided videos of Neil Gaiman and the illustrator of the British version of the book (Chris Riddell) on the book's webpage. The book was published on September 17, 2013. HarperKids has a trailer featuring Neil Gaiman and there's another from Bloomsbury Publishing.