Fortunately, The Milk by Neil Gaiman; Illustrated by Skottie Young

Summary from Goodreads:

"I bought the milk," said my father. "I walked out of the corner shop, and heard a noise like this: T h u m m t h u m m. I looked up and saw a huge silver disc hovering in the air above Marshall Road."

"Hullo," I said to myself. "That's not something you see every day. And then something odd happened."

Find out just how odd things get in this hilarious story of time travel and breakfast cereal, expertly told by Newbery Medalist and bestselling author Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Skottie Young.

When I see Neil Gaiman's kidlit, the covers are usually dark, and the tales, grim. So, I was quite surprised to see this really bright, happy, cute cover with Gaiman's name on it. And that title, who would not find that so adorable? 

Chalk it up to Neil Gaiman  to create a fantastical story about something as mundane as getting milk. That's how it all started. You see, the mom got called away from home, leaving the dad in charge. Unfortunately, the household ran out of milk. The children need it for their breakfast cereal and the dad for his tea. So, off the dad went to grab some milk at the store. The dad returned but only after a considerable amount of time. The kids asked what took him so long, and here he recounted the most fantastical tale that ever happened to anyone getting milk from a store, probably in the whole universe (or maybe even in the whole multiverse).

He met aliens, walked the plank for a band of pirates, rode in a time travelling hot air balloon with an inventor dinosaur,  avoided being sacrificed by a tribe to a god-volcano, talked to magical ponies, escaped being eaten by wumpires (vampires), saved the earth from being redecorated with pink flamingos and floating scented candles, and be serenaded by a galactic police composed of dinosaurs. And the dad did all these things while keeping his cool. He is one awesome dad, I tell you. 

So yeah, it's one silly, loony, cooky, adventure story with many funny quips that made me smile and giggle. I like that it's a bit of a nod to storytelling, the oral tradition, I mean. I remember when I was a kid, my mom had this made up story called "Si Kudangdang" (it's a name of the girl in the story), which I loved so much that she had made a cassette recording of it for me. I am not sure but in this day and age, I do hope moms and dads still tell their kids stories, or at least read to them. Also, I am not sure if The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams was ever an inspiration but see a bit of it in this book. As well as reminding me of Doctor Who (somehow, the dad reminds me of the 10th doctor) with the whole space and time travel rules. And there is a reference to Twilight too, and that was fun.

The US version has Skottie Young illustrating it. And they are fantastic drawings that added a comedic boost to the whole thing. It really made adventure story come alive. Check out Skootie Young's Site (which I just spent hours on) for his cool illustrations.    

All in all, I think this is what they refer to as "A Rollicking Romp".  It reminded me of how much fun it is to read children's literature.