37 pages • 1 hour read
Neil GaimanFortunately, the Milk
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
The Young Boy
The young boy is the first-person narrator. He lives on Marshall Road with his mother, a lizard researcher; his father; and his younger sister. The boy’s name and age are never shared; the illustrations show him to be elementary school-aged. The boy recounts his father’s story exactly as it was told to him—which results in the story being narrated in the first person by his father. The boy and his younger sister occasionally interrupt, reminding the reader that their father’s lengthy story is his answer to why it took him so long to buy the milk.
Young’s illustrations show a tousled-haired young boy, curiously searching through the fridge for milk, contemplating ketchup, pickle juice, or mayonnaise as substitutes. While they are waiting for their father to get home, the young boy is pictured sitting on the kitchen floor playing on a device, surrounded by board games and coloring books. The image is that of a happy family who enjoy each other’s company.
The boy reassures his younger sister when she worries about their father; this shows that he is a caring older brother. The young boy knows his father is making up the story of being abducted by aliens, but he enjoys listening. He becomes so entranced with the tale that there is a moment of belief before both he and his sister tell their father: “You know, we don’t believe any of this” (105). The boy interrupts the story, questioning the ability of a Stegosaurus to “nip” up a ladder. This, together with the dinosaur model in the kitchen and the prominent role dinosaurs play in the father’s story, highlight the young boy’s interest in dinosaurs and his father’s acknowledgment of this.
The Boy’s Younger Sister
The narrator of the story, a young boy, has a younger sister who is just as intent on finding milk for her cereal. Her name and age are never shared, but the narrative and illustrations depict her with a reflective personality and youthful characteristics. Young’s illustrations show her as a cute, wiry, smiling young girl with wild hair held back by a hairband. She wears stripy tights and a star on her shirt that matches the one on her toy pony. She plays the violin and is part of an orchestra, but is still a beginner; this is suggested when her brother asks her to stop practicing as soon as she starts. She loves ponies and has a collection of colorful toy ones. She interrupts her father to ask if there will be ponies in his story: “I thought there would be ponies by now” (40). This implies that her father often tells her imaginative pony-based stories.
The wumpires in her father’s story are inspired by a vampire romance novel that she left in the kitchen. Her interruption of her father’s story suggests her wistful, daydreamy nature: “I think there should have been some nice wumpires […] Nice, handsome, misunderstood wumpires” (68). The little sister’s relationship with her brother is typical of siblings. Her brother teases her in a mostly good-natured way, and she behaves like a typical younger sister: He gives her chocolate-covered mushrooms, without telling her about the mushrooms, and while they wait for the father, she makes faces at him.
The little sister sees her mother as the boss of the house; she worries that “Mum would blame us” if anything bad happened to their father (10).
The Children’s Father
The father is the protagonist in his own story and the main character in his son’s. The father initially appears to be disinterested in family matters; he is intent on reading his newspaper while the children’s mother is giving him household instructions to follow when she’s away. Young’s illustration of the father underscores his absentmindedness; he is depicted as happily reading his newspaper while the mother yells directions at him. His family is surprised that he can recite back (most of) the instructions, and his son muses: “I do not think he pays a lot of attention to the world while he is reading his newspaper” (2). This suggests that the father is often buried in his own world.
However, the father is clearly a sociable man. He stops to chat to a friend, the reason it takes so long for him to get home. When he does get home, the narrative shows his imaginative, fun-loving character. Rather than simply apologizing and giving the real reason for his delay, the father creates a story full of characters he knows that his children will love: dinosaurs, vampires, and ponies. By making himself the hero of the story, one who is determined to get the milk back to his beloved children, he shows how much he cares. It is his way of apologizing for taking so long.
The father is spontaneous and disorganized, unlike his wife, who runs an efficient household and is a successful lizard researcher. While the father struggles to carry out simple tasks, such as reheating frozen dinners or remembering to buy milk, he shows The Power of Storytelling. He transports his children with his time-traveling adventure, turning something as mundane as being delayed by a friend while buying milk into an exciting quest. More importantly, he creates valuable father/child bonding time with his two children.
The father he portrays himself as in the story displays determination, bravery, and selfless heroism. The real father is creative with a vivid imagination; he is both fun-loving and enjoys quiet solitude in which to read his newspaper undisturbed.
Professor Steg
Professor Steg, a protagonist in the father’s story, is the renowned inventor of the time machine. She is a Stegosaurus with armored back-flaps and a “heavily armored tail” (51). The father embarrassingly mistakes her for being male. The far future dinosaurs have grown up reading Professor Steg’s books; this shows that she becomes a legend and is known for her inventions and writings. Her gender is unremarkable to everyone except the human father, a nod to misogynistic gender stereotypes.
Professor Steg is kind and empathic, with a unique way of talking. For example, coconuts are “hard-hairy-wet-white-crunchers” (27), and her hot air balloon is a “Floaty-Ball-Person-Carrier” (27). She humbly rescues the father from the pirates: “I hope you don’t mind me helping, but it looked like you were having problems down there” (26). In each of the father’s adventures, Professor Steg figures out a way to get them out of trouble. She understands how important the milk is for the father, even though dinosaurs “do not go in for milk” (28). Professor Steg makes notes of what “human fathers” do for her research books and tries to tell future dinosaurs that the father is not a gorilla, but a “human.” This implies that humans are insignificant in the scheme of the Universe—in the far future humans and gorillas will be remembered as the same thing.
Professor Steg’s introduction provides another “good” character for the father’s children to root for. Without Steg, the father would be facing the pirates, wumpires, and aliens alone. This is an example of a story in which companions overcome adversity together, looking out for each other and problem-solving as a team, which can teach children about teamwork and friendship. In addition, Professor Steg traveling with the father makes the story less scary. Young children feel safe with someone to protect them, and Professor Steg is there to protect the father, and the milk, during their adventures.
At the end of the book, the father’s children realize that Professor Steg and the other dinosaurs were inspired by the young boy’s dinosaur models in the kitchen.
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