KS: Lower KS2
Year Group: Year 3
Literary Theme: Confidence & Caution
Author(s): Neil Gaiman
This is a 12-session Literary Leaf for Fortunately the Milk by Neil Gaiman in which children begin by playing with Kennings, which is a much-compressed form of metaphor, originally used in Anglo-Saxon and Norse poetry. They then go onto draw inferences, firstly about the plot and then about characters.
We chose this book for a Literary Leaf as it's a great first novel for children to explore and both Neil Gailman and Chris Riddell are fabulous authors for children to start being aware of at this age. It is humourous and the chapters are short as well as being illiustrated so there is a great book to engage with.
Mum has gone away to a conference – to present a paper on lizards. Dad is left with a set of instructions which he follows pretty much to the letter… except for forgetting the last thing mum says as she is leaving: ‘we’re running low on milk so don’t forget to pick up some more.’ Easily solved though, dad goes out the next morning to buy some but seems to take an extremely long time to return. The children are getting worried when dad reappears, clutching the milk and telling them what seems to be a very tall tale indeed involving pirates, wumpires, a flying saucer and a professor. And all the while, dad has managed to keep hold of the milk even though it has several times been in great peril. The children suspect that dad’s story is just that – a story. But still, they get their ‘wet-white-drinky-stuff and all returns to normal.
Inventions, time-travel, dinosaurs, pirates
KS: Upper KS2
Year Group: Year 6
