The Milk of Dreams by Leonora Carrington

Title: The Milk of Dreams
Author: Leonora Carrington
Publisher: New York Review Children’s Collection
ISBN: 978-1681370941
Genre: Children’s Books
Pages: 56
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

The Milk of Dreams by Leonora Carrington is such a strange book – even though it is for children. The short stories are odd, have a fairy tale quality to them, and are surreal to the hilt.

These stories aren’t the usual fare that authors serve up for children. They are dark – with children’s body parts missing, some sewed back, and a story also of a vulture getting stuck in gelatin. Carrington read these stories to her children, and that’s how they came to be. In fact, the illustrations in the book are also from the ones that she made on the children’s bedroom walls.

This book is bizarre, and at the same time delightfully odd and silly. I was captivated by all of it – the drawings, the prose that was crazy, and the nonchalance of it all, in the sense of it being read to kids. There is John, who has wings for ears, and “Humbert the Beautiful”, and my personal favorite being “The Horrible Story of the Little Meats” – a fantastic fairy of a woman who doesn’t like kids, and ends up feeding them bad meat, to then do what she wants to.

The Milk of Dreams is a read that is short and yet stays with you. I could reread and reread it some more. Maybe this time I will pay more attention to the illustrations as well. All said and done, it is the kind of book that could be read easily in less than an hour and like I said, go back to once in a while.