Fortunately, the Milk

Those people have not read Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman. The book, published in 2013, came into this world long past the date at which I could have read it to my children. This is sad. Very sad. I would have liked to have read this book to my children. They would have liked to have had me read to them. But, they were born too soon. Children in the future have it better.

It is a simple tale. Mom leaves town, and when the kids wake up, there is no milk in the house, so Dad goes to get the milk, and he doesn’t come back for a rather long time (long time in kid terms—in adult terms, maybe an hour). When he returns, the bored children ask what took him so long. So, Dad explains…and that is the story.

You see, Dad went right to the store to get the milk, and on his way back he was abducted by aliens, from whom he escaped only to be captured by pirates, from whom he also escaped when he was rescued by a stegosaurus named Steg in a hot-air balloon and they end up…well, the story has a volcano god, piranhas, wumpires and more. It is a rollicking tale, full of dastardly villains and heroic heroes and danger and escape and lots and lots and lots of oddities. Do not be anxious. Fortunately, the Milk is not lost. (Should I have included a spoiler alert for the fact that Fortunately, the Milk was not lost?)

This is a story you want to read aloud and make up fantastic voices for all the characters and raise and lower the volume of your voice as danger looms and subsides. This is the story in which you want gasp aloud when horror strikes and then look utterly relieved when horror is avoided. If you read it with enough gusto, you would have a marvelous time. It is a book, in other words, made for Dads who like to read books aloud and engage in over-the-top dramatic amateur theatrics.

It is a fun book. Sadly, my children were too old…

As if that wasn’t enough to make you want to read this book to your kids, Dear Reader, there is more. After you read this book, you get to have some really fascinating philosophical discussion with the Listeners.

First, you can wrestle with the Time Travel parts. (Of course there is Time Travel! How could a book like this Not have Time Travel?) As the Steg explains to the wumpires, “We are on an important mission I am trying to get back to the present. My assistant [aka Dad] is trying to get home to the future for breakfast.” Does the sentence “I am trying to get back to the present” makes logical sense? If you have never had a discussion about the nature of time with an 8 year old, then this book gives you the wonderful opportunity for a marvelous conversation.

There is in addition a time loop. (Of course there is a Time Loop. How could there Not be a Time Loop?) Future Dad helps Present Dad (who is currently in the past) out of a really bad situation. You see, Present Dad lost the Milk (insert sounds of horror), but Future Dad was able to go back in time to grab the milk that Present Dad lost and return it to him, which means there can now be two milks, both Present milk and Future milk. As if that is not enough looping goodness, after discovering that milk from one time can be brought into another time, Even-Farther-in-the-Future Dad reaches back in time to get the milk from what is then Past Dad and voila, there are now two of the same milks existing at the same time! (Don’t worry, Future Dad sends the past milk back into the past before the universe is destroyed.) Now ask that 8 year old Listener to explain how all this works.

Once you are done with all this marvelous discussion of Time, you can move on to discussing necessary and sufficient conditions. (Insert sounds of Great Joy!) After Dad has finished his tale explaining why it took him so long to get home, the kids express skepticism. For some strange reason they do not believe that all of these things happened to Dad as he was trying to come home with the Milk. Dad is not disturbed at all by their doubts, because he can prove his story is true. “How?” ask the kids. Dad reaches into his pocket and produces the Milk.

Does this prove Dad’s story is true? After all, if the story was true then Dad would have the milk in his pocket when he came through the door. If he didn’t have the milk, the story would be false. But, he has the milk. So, that is proof, right? Now spend a good long time insisting that the existence of the milk proves the story is true while the young listeners work out the difference between a necessary condition (if the story is true, then there necessarily must be must be milk in Dad’s pocket) and a sufficient condition (if there is milk in Dad’s pocket, then that is sufficient to establish that the story must be true).

Want more philosophical discussions? There is a fascinating rumination on nomenclature. Steg refers to objects in what seems like an unconventional manner. Steg’s “hard-hairy-wet-white-crunchers” are what Dad calls “coconuts.” Steg rides in his “Floaty-Ball-Person-Carrier” powered by “special shiny-bluey-stones.” The fact that Dad has different names raises an interesting question: who gets to name things? Steg was around long before Dad, after all. Doesn’t Steg have the right to name things? (Who, by the way, got to name the Listener to whom you are reading the story?)

There are also fascinating culinary matters: why exactly can you not put orange juice on your breakfast cereal?

This is a story which can be read again and again, and after each reading, yet more marvelous discussions will ensue. To help you in your rereading pleasure, the book also has a curious publication decision. The book was published in Britain and America by different publishers. The book is filled with illustrations, which help the story roll along in its marvelously inventive way. But, the illustrations are not the same in the British and American versions. Indeed, not even the illustrator is the same. Skottie Young did the American version; Chris Riddell did the British version. The illustrations are not even remotely the same; completely different style. So, after reading one version multiple times, you can get the other version and start a whole new debate on which set of illustrations is better and how the story is affected by the new set of illustrations. (Plus, with new illustrations, you can invent new voices!).

Sometimes, books are pure fun. This is one of those books.