Fortunately, the Milk

I've always been a fan of scary stories. When I was a teenager my dad would always get me a copy of the latest Stephen King book (actually he still does that sometimes! :). I used to read books like "Stories to Read With the Lights On" (I mean, who doesn't do that), but they were suspenseful.

Maybe because of that I think Neil Gaiman is an incredible writer. He writes both children's (Coraline) and adult books (The Ocean At the End of the Lane)-which I think is a feat in itself. And they are always entertaining. I think I came across this one as a suggested book on Amazon (they get me with that all the time!). It's:

The story is about a man who goes out to get some milk for his children's breakfast and takes a very long time to return. His explanation why includes aliens, pirates, vampires and time-traveling dinosaurs-just to name a few. As the story goes on the kids comment (weren't there any ponies?) and you can tell they are very skeptical. The ending is downright reminiscient of Keysor Soze (Usual Suspects....Kevin Spacey breakout movie). The illustrations are masterful. The story is entertaining. I usually read a chapter a day of a book to my students-well, there are no chapters, it just goes straight through. It seems like something my father would have tried to pull when we little, maybe that's why I like it so much! :)

Well, why not discuss the ethics of him telling such a story. At first, my little moral 1st Graders were convinced that all lying was wrong. Then I reminded them of how they just read with their Pre-K buddies and told them how they read the story so well--was that 100% true? Or what about when your mom gets her hair cut and it makes her look like Annie? When she says "what do you think?" do you tell her the truth? That discussion lead to their answers to the question: Do you think the Dad was right or wrong to tell such a make-believe story to the kids leading them to believe it was the truth?