The father, now holding two bottles of milk, threatens to touch them together, thereby ending the whole universe (probably) unless the aliens send all the creatures away and let him go home with the milk. And they need their breakfast") prompts the pirates to make him walk the plank, with piranhas circling below. Neil Gaiman’s latest book, “Fortunately The Milk” is a boisterous tale of an extraordinary adventure, time travel and milk. Even under the most outlandish circumstances, he proves to be clever, resourceful, and, above all, fond of his kids.

I grew up with a father who tended to invent things and know things and talk about things and could absolutely have gone off into the kind of flight of fancy in Fortunately, the Milk. Both the father and the son get to tell the story, at the same time sometimes, and neither of them have names, other than their roles in the story. This is the story of why it takes him a very long time to get back again - a story which features a time-travelling stegosaurus, aliens, vampires, dinosaur police and the Queen of the Pirates, as well as a whole host of other completely unexpected adventures. I looked high and low for Neil's book, but all that was there were stacks of Paranormal Romance as far as I could see. The plank is the father’s idea, because that’s where people usually get rescued, and indeed the father is rescued by a rope ladder hanging from a hot air balloon.With plenty of silliness, Fortunately, the Milk is great fun and is certain to tickle readers of all ages. As a woman of an age which shall not be mentioned, I found this story absolutely delightful and the illustrations are the best I’ve seen since I was a little bitty one. Just before getting back home with the milk, the father hears a noise coming from a silver spaceship hovering above him which sucks him up.

This sends him “three hundred years in the past” to the 18th century and drops him into the sea (27). If you decide to read it, keep in mind that it's a short story oriented for children, so please, don't harm the rating of this sweet book just because you were expecting "Neil Gaiman, the great mind behind Sandman and American Gods".

And I am OBSESSED with The Graveyard Book, and I've been trying to find some other work of his to praise, but unfortunately this isn't it. Parents need to know that Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman ( Coraline, The Graveyard Book) is a goofy, high-spirited fantasy adventure that pinballs from one unlikely scenario to another. The man has once again stolen my heart, giggles, and smile with a nonstop, swashbuckling spin through time and space with pirates, aliens, and wumpires. My favorite part was when it is revealed that Dad, in a sneaky Keyser Söze-like move, has gleaned all his inspiration from items in the kitchen.

The police charge the aliens with the crime of “breaking into people’s planets and redecorating them” (91). I just want to comment that if you ever been able to contain yourselves of reading aloud the lines of the wumpires (yes, you read correctly.After writing The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish and finding that a lot of people were giving it to their fathers for Father's Day as a tongue-in-cheek insult, he thought he had better make amends. Despite knowing that a cafe that sells books would never sell the books I like, I decided to investigate due to my boredom and to make an old lady happy.

Skottie Young's full-spread pen-and-ink drawing depicts the transition from the pristine home when their mother left to the books-and-papers-strewn checkered floor of the kitchen, indicating hours of seemingly endless waiting. Just as the kids begin to slump, sigh, and strongly consider soaking their cereal in orange juice, Dad swoops back in the door with much more than just milk. On board, green "globby" beings demand that the father hand over "ownership of the whole planet" so they can "remodel it.

Update: The fourth grade kids are now Grade 8 students (that is unbelievable enough - they must have opened that door that let in the time-space-continuum! For an hour, Neil and Scottie take us to a funny wacky fantasy adventure, but at the end, they let you to decide if all was lie or not. Either the universe will end, or we will be watching the madness of dwarves with flower pots go on for a while still.