I grew up with a father who tended to invent things and know things and talk about things and could absolutely have gone off into the kind of flight of fancy in Fortunately, the Milk. And my daughter, Maddie, when she read Fortunately, the Milk recently, said that when she got to the end, all she could think was that it sounded exactly like me. So, I think Fortunately is just very, very me. I'm not sure about in Ocean. It's left ambiguous whether the father is actually under the control of Ursula Monkton or not, and it would be worse if he wasn't. If the same object from two different times touches itself, one of two things will happen. Either the Universe will cease to exist. Or three remarkable dwarfs will dance through the streets with flowerpots on their heads.” I really want to do a musical. I'd really like to be involved, day in, day out, with putting a good stage play together. Just haven't done it yet and really ought to.

I think this is a very good book and it deserves 5 stars, which I have drawn here (because it meant I could stay on the iPad for longer. :) ) Oh, absolutely. One hundred percent. My safest places were libraries, manned or unmanned by librarians. My teachers were books. They taught me to look out through other people's eyes, which is the most important thing that anything like that can do. In Ocean, you never name the boy-man narrator. Yet the importance of naming is essential to the plot. Why didn't you give him a name? Is he Everyman? (In the same way that Bod is Nobody?) The children and their parents get no names in Fortunately, the Milk, either. Coincidence? Overall, this is a non-stop, fast-paced, crazy adventure that’s fun to get lost in. If you’re a fan of Neil Gaiman or even Roald Dahl stories, give this one a try.No it's a Neil book, not a Neal book," I yelled as a group of knights in armour clanked out of the darkness and seized the shrunken man and I. I left in a huff and a grumble, mumbling things about prescription lenses and Vampire Weekend being a good band anyway. Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide. Get started Close Families can talk about whether mothers and fathers have different ideas about parenting. Why do they consider some household chores very important and others less so?

It's a fun children's or early middle-grade story, and the illustrations absolutely make it. This would be a great read-aloud book for kids who like wildly imaginative adventures. Hullo," I said to myself. "That's not something you see every day. And then something odd happened." at the end of May in New York City, Neil Gaiman gave a talk provocatively titled "Why Fiction Is Dangerous." He noted that he had two books--Fortunately, the Milk and The Ocean at the End of the Lane --being published within two months of each other: one, a children's book with an adult narrator; the other an adult book from a seven-year-old's perspective. Gaiman recently paused during his cross-country U.S. tour for the books to answer a few questions about them (plus a few other things). Born and raised in England, Gaiman now lives in the U.S. with his wife, musician Amanda Palmer. You will find "Neil Gaiman, the wonderful dad that wrote a story to entertain for an hour to his children and the children of all the world."This is an excellent book to read aloud to 4th grade kids who are in the process of developing a sense for the absurdities of life. It is mainly about telling stories and that you can make up a great plot about anything, no matter how boring the so-called truth of every-day life is. Small things give you big ideas - and they don't have to make sense. Update: The fourth grade kids are now Grade 8 students (that is unbelievable enough - they must have opened that door that let in the time-space-continuum!), and they still refer to the time when I read "Fortunately the milk..." aloud to the class. I would say that is the best praise a children's book can get. "Then the milk touches the milk" has become an insider saying! Either the universe will end, or we will be watching the madness of dwarves with flower pots go on for a while still. I'm not even sure what my process is and I've been doing this for 30 years. Normally, at some point, I will pull open a notebook and I will start writing stuff and that's always the beginning of the process. At the end of the day, if you're writing something that's novel length or is probably likely to turn into novel length, the process is going to consist of faffing around in the morning, getting your exercise done, maybe eating a light lunch and then going somewhere that you won't be disturbed, opening a notebook and writing. And, wherever that place is, that's going to be the process. It's going to be putting down the words. At this point in your career, are you able to take Stephen King's advice (mentioned in your " Make Good Art" speech) and think to yourself, "This is really great" and just "enjoy it"?