'I am even further from my children and our breakfast,' I said. 'You have your milk,' he said. 'Where there's milk there's hope. Ah, over there. That looks like a perfect landing platform for time travelling scientists in Floaty-Ball-Person-Carriers. ' In Bengali there is a saying 'golper goru gaache uthe', 'story's heifer mounts a tree.' And this book mounts beyond logic of nonsense genre. Unlike Alice who trips down the rabbit lane, it's an adventure of a father in the mundane world. Two kids, a brother and sister can't have breakfast as they have run out of milk and you can't have cereal with orange juice. Mom is not in the house, she is on a tour to lecture in a conference about lizard. And Dad has to get milk, because he has to have his tea. On his small walk to get milk from departmental store, he gets kidnapped by green gooey aliens, opens up a time-space continuum: lands on pirate ship, gets rescued by Prof. Steg a time travelling scientists Stegosaurus, meets wumpires, steal a ruby from a volcano god and almost destroy universe. It plays on all the sci-fi tropes we have, time travel, practical collision, prophecy, manipulation of linearity, aliens hijacking the planet and one lonely parent saving the day. Only our illustrated Father here looks like Gaiman! It's a funny a book with equally funny art by the wonderful Chris Riddell. My friend and I, and many friends realised early that Gaiman's stories work so well, because he has great artist for his stories who understand his quirky sense of writing. The story never undermines the art, hence the experience is always fruitful. It's the perfect book to gift a child who reads! I wish when I was a kiddling I got such books, but then as a kid I hated books, I wouldn't have read it. Happy Children's day to all my friends who keep lamenting the loss of their childhood. Sorry love world sucks, get over it. I do not miss my childhood. I am fine with my adult life. #fortunatelythemilk by #neilgaiman and #chrisriddell
