Sometimes books just fall through the gaps in our review schedule, to nestle unread beneath the mire and dust deep in the gutter of our blog's overspill bin.

Well, that's not actually what happened with "Fortunately, The Milk" by genius author Neil Gaiman and equally genius illustrator Chris Riddell (or fantastic artist Skottie Young if you're a US reader!). You see there we were, back in 2013, all geared up to review the very socks off this fantastic book. We waited and waited, we wrote about it lots, full of anticip..........ation and joy.

But the review copy never turned up. Now, I'm not going to have a go at Bloomsbury here as they do send us lovely things to review (though only 'propah' journalists get their middle grade / Harry Potter stuff).

This one really fell through the cracks, and after recently hearing many Twitter folk describing it as a brilliant example of a time travel story for middle graders, I thought I'd just better go and flippin' well buy a copy 6 years late.

So, was it worth the wait? Here's a thing. Sometimes when you've wanted to read something for ages, you can get so over-hyped about a book that when it finally arrives it can't possibly measure up to the hype. Thus was the case with "Fortunately, the Milk" which started out OK, but took a good few re-readings before I finally "got" it.

It's the story of an ordinary family. A mum, a dad, a couple of kids. As is the norm with children's books the mum is a hyper-powered corporate suit-wearing superhero who is nipping off to a conference, leaving the slightly hopeless but well-meaning dad behind to look after the kids.

She leaves behind a long list of chores for the dad - but chief amongst them is to go and get some more milk, after all no one wants to eat cornflakes with tomato ketchup on them do they? (C: I would!)

Unfortunately,  the milk. Yes, as you'd probably have guessed, Dad forgets to buy any but the next morning, before breakfast, he nips out to the corner shop to obtain the revered cow-juice. 

Our Chapter Book of the Week this week isn't exactly new, but it seems incredible to think that we haven't reviewed it on the blog before...

My late Nan was always a great believer in stories. She instilled in us a love of books, and had a million and one stories of her own. The reason I mention her is that October (her birth month) sees the launch of a fantastic new magazine for children. "Scoop" magazine gathers together a brilliant combination of book snippets, book news, comic strips, puzzles, activities and of course - most importantly of all - stories from far and wide.

We've been lucky enough to have been sent issue one to take a look at and we're both really impressed. For me, it's like having a fantastic magazine version of one of my fave book shows from childhood, "The Book Tower" which had Tom Baker spellbindingly telling us all about new books and story releases.

For Charlotte, it was the lure of reading about books and stories that she hadn't heard of, hungrily devouring chunks of fantastic tales as well as poetry and comics.

The whole magazine is beautifully illustrated throughout by some of the top talent working in children's publishing today. With contributors like Neil Gaiman, Abi Elphinstone, Laura Dockrill and Gareth P. Jones amongst many, many others, it's like a who's who of all the amazingly talented folk who are making the brightest and best children's literature for us to pluck from bookshelves and lose ourselves in.

It's brilliant to find an ad-and-plastic-tat-free magazine devoted to our great passion - stories and reading.

"Scoop" will primarily be sold through subscription and costs just £40 for an annual ten-issue subscription, with schools able to take out an annual subscription of ten issues (with 5 copies each issue) for £160. "Scoop" will also be available through selected independent book retailers from November.

Details on the magazine and the subscription charges can be found on the website:

http://www.scoopthemag.co.uk

As we said, we think this is an utterly brilliant magazine and we wish them huge success with this - not least of all because there's always room for a magazine that's as passionate about stories and books as we are!

We should start out with a warning. "The Sleeper and the Spindle" really isn't a children's book per se, but older children will relish the opportunity to read such dark fare so if they're already well versed with the brooding and dark imagination of Messrs Gaiman and Riddell, they'll be OK with this. It's definitely not a cosy bed-time read though, this.

"The Sleeper and the Spindle" weaves together a story that delves into the dreamscapes and darkest corners of a Brothers Grimm tale and fuses their rather morality-led storytelling with something that at once feels quite contemporary and full of exquisite little twists.

The story opens with a land slowly falling under a nefarious spell of sleep, and a queen who herself is newly awoken from a dark magic-tainted sleep herself. The brave queen is soon to be married, and laments the end of the life she knows (and loves) for a life of toil, child-bearing, unhappiness and 'married-ness' (owch!)


The queen is a fascinating character. Hewn from the same granite as Joan of Arc but with a delicate frail side, needing to pluck up all her courage to save her land from the dark spell and trace it to its nefarious roots. She enlists the help of a team of dwarves, the very same folk who were instrumental in freeing her from her dark sleep - and here Gaiman is expertly borrowing from so many other classic story themes to create something new and vibrant.

As the queen's mission begins she knows she's already running out of time. Her people are falling asleep in their droves, and when she finds the impenetrable source of the dark magic - a rose-thorn-encrusted tower - she starts to fall once again under the spell herself...


I can't really reveal too much of the story without revealing the big satisfying twist, delivered with a whump to the chest as the book draws to a close - Suffice to say that I remember seeing quite a lot of criticism levelled at this book (perhaps because of one particular amazing and gorgeous Chris Riddell illustration 3/4 of the way through the book that will leave you completely breathless - Those of you who've already read this will know the pic I mean).

Gaiman's writing is as tight as ever, no words are used lightly, and the themes that are explored here are dissected with precision and deft grace. Chris Riddell is the illustrator I'd most love to be able to draw like. His characters are beautiful, grotesque, expressive and astounding and fit this tale so well that you'd struggle to imagine anyone else illustrating this story.

I opted not to share this one with Charlotte - yet (I'd welcome debate on whether this was the wrong or right thing to do, and it was a decision purely to do with the darkness of the story and the way that I could imagine it sticking in a child's mind - particularly a child brought up loving 'fairy stories' - It certainly had nothing to do with the sapphic illustrative spread that seemed to get a lot of critics hot under the collar btw).

I am beginning to wonder if I'll ever find anything by Neil Gaiman that I don't take to (though some of his stuff does demand close attention and several 'readings' to properly appreciate his approach to storytelling - I could still fall either side of the fence with Neverwhere for instance). As for Chris Riddell, he never puts a foot wrong with me. I just can't get enough of his work.

Daddy's Favourite bit: The rich, sometimes rude descriptive language in this darkly delicious tale is perfectly complimented by exquisite ink drawings. Dark, twisty, fabulous storytelling.

US Cover (and slightly different name) for Neil Gaiman's marvellous "Fortunately, The Milk"

Ooh we're in a pickle. We really don't know which one we like best - but as Neil Gaiman puts it on his blog, he seems to have not one but TWO books coming out in September.

"Fortunately, the Milk" will be arriving stateside on September the 17th with artwork by the utterly brilliant Skottie Young.

Of course the UK does not miss out, we get this...

"Fortunately, The Milk..." with illustrations by Chris Riddell

Either way you're in for a bit of a treat. We've seen the Netgalley versions of the UK edition and Chris's illustrations are utterly wonderful. But we don't like to miss out, we really do want both so we'll have to pull in a few favours from our friends across the pond and try and make it happen.

"Fortunately, the Milk..."will be arriving on UK and Australian shores on - yes you've guessed it - September 17th!

Pick up a pinta or two and mark that date in your calendar. It's going to be awesome.

Coming on September 17th from Bloomsbury Publishing, Neil Gaiman's new children's book "Fortunately, The Milk" is going to be spectacularly huge, take our word for it.

Here, Neil gives you a tasty lactose-tolerant glimpse into what spurred him to write a children's book celebrating dads (hooray) and letting dads take centre stage in a heroic chase across time and space to grab a couple of pints of the fresh white stuff.

We've been lucky enough to see a preview of the UK version (with utterly brilliant illustrations by Chris Riddell, including one or two awesome cameos - not least of all the main character himself who looks a little familiar, shall we say?

We're massive Neil Gaiman fans here at ReadItDaddy (as you can probably tell from our recent reviews of "Crazy Hair" and our constant references to the genius that is "Coraline".

So hearing that the man with the crazy hair (well, he HAS got crazy hair!) is behind a new children's book is exciting news.

"Fortunately, The Milk" written by Neil Gaiman with illustrations by Chris Riddell, is coming from Bloomsbury very soon indeed. Weaving a tale of time travel, dinosaurs and...well, a bottle of red top - it's inherently the sort of thing we love Mr Gaiman for.

Don't just take our word for it though, listen to the man himself talking about the book over at Sci Fi magazine SFX's website. 

Neil Gaiman on "Fortunately, The Milk"


(Edit: The cover image previously included in this post was for the US edition, which will be illustrated by Skottie Young - Chris Riddell is illustrating the UK version - kthanks)

I'm not sure why we've previously avoided this book when we've come across it in the local library. Thanks to Charlotte's Uncle Simon who came with us last trip, we grabbed it and it's ended up being something of a surprise hit.

Bad parent admission: I have Gaiman and McKean's "Mirrormask" at home (both movie and book) and Charlotte has seen the book (and loves it) and has seen bits of the movie (skipped swiftly past any of the horrible bits) so she was quite interested in the sort of bizarre alt-worlds this extremely talented duo create.

In Crazy Hair a young girl chastises her father for his absolutely bonkers barnet, and he describes why his hair is so crazy. It's an entire ecosystem, self supporting, never needs combing, a natural habitat for birds and a whole bunch of other wildlife besides.

I loved the rhyming and interaction between the two characters, and Charlotte also enjoyed hearing the sing-song verse in this (it's quite interesting to note that she's beginning to show more interest in the words and listening to the vocabulary in certain books rather than clamouring to look at the pictures - not that the illustrations in this aren't brilliant, of course!)

A very cool book, with no (half expected) tinge of darkness in it (unless you count the end, it's worth noting it's a happy ending not a sad one).

Charlotte's best bit: When I told her that the rather strange looking 'flaky worm things' in the book were actually what her hair would look like under a microscope! EWWW!

Daddy's favourite bit: Neil Gaiman's writing. He could make the ingredients of a packet of cornflakes interesting!