The quiet brilliance of Fortunately, the Milk

“Spoons are excellent. Sort of like forks, only not as stabby.” – Neil Gaiman

Fortunately, The Milk by Neil Gaiman
113 pages
Genre: Children’s lit
Published by HarperCollins, 2013
Rating: 5 out of 5
Re-readability: I can’t wait to read this one with my kids!

Reviewed by Indiana
Spoiler-free review 

Neil Gaiman fans will probably roll their eyes at this review.

They’ll be thinking “Well, of course it’s good. Neil wrote it.” But I’d like to argue that Fortunately, The Milk shows off a totally different side of Gaiman’s writing and his humor.

Through whimsical twists and turns it follows the story of a father of two who has been left to care for the kids on his own for a few days. When his son and daughter wake up to find that there’s no milk in the fridge, the father “runs out” to grab some.

But he gets a little caught up.

First he gets sucked into another dimension and is rescued by a brilliant dinosaur who supposedly invented hot air balloons and a lot of other things. At one point he has to run from aliens really want to redecorate earth. There’s a unicorn and a vampire. It only gets weirder.

But through each adventure, the father is saved by the bottle of milk that he picked up.

Of course, when the father makes it home, the kids ask what took him so long, and he launches into his story . . . they have a hard time believing him.

The story feels more like a Dr. Seuss book at points, especially because of the illustrations.

Skottie Young, a comic book artist and illustrator, used a sketchy and whimsical style that perfectly suited the story and never got in the way of it, despite being on almost every other page.

Fortunately, the Milk is a wonderful book that’s perfect to start and finish in one gulp.