"Fortunately, The Milk" is a 2013 children's book, written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Skottie Young. Although Neil Gaiman has written many young adult novels, this is thematically and structurally a children's book.
Two children and their father are left alone at home when their mother goes on vacation. She leaves detailed instructions, but forgets to put enough fresh milk in the refrigerator. The father goes out to get it, and after his delayed return, he gives a tall tale to explain why he was gone so long: he is kidnapped by aliens, escapes their ship only to land on a pirate ship, and is then rescued by a stegosaurus in a hot air balloon that is also a time machine. Adventures like this continue, until finally he reaches home.
This book, according to its inside jacket, was written with third to sixths graders in mind. And I suppose, for that age group, it might be an exciting book. So it might not be fair to judge this book against my own standards, but I found it to be incredibly twee, and also incredibly "random".
"Three purple dwarves with flowerpots on their heads appeared from nowhere and began to do a little dance."
The book is just full of zany, unexpected and genre-subverting moments like that. I get the feeling that Gaiman intentionally put together a check-list of
pop culture items and decided to throw them all into a book. And while it might be appealing to those young enough not to have seen things like this, it didn't work at all for me.