The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish (1997)

Gaiman's children's novels are extremely hit or miss with me. I didn't particularly care for this but I'm not the intended audience either. I only read this because the librarians were taking forever and a day to get a book from the closed stacks for me.

Not creepy at all. (I'm not rating this, since I'd hate to drag the rating down when it wasn't written for my age group.)

Fun fun fun. ( )

From the author of The Wolves in the Walls and the incredible comic book series Sandman comes a delightful story about a young boy who decides to swap his newspaper-reading father for two goldfish, and his struggle to get him back.

The Day I Swapped my Dad for Two Goldfish won the award for Newsweek's Best Children's Book in 2003, and British Science Fiction Association's award for short fiction in 1997.

It is based on a re-telling of an age-old tale of a item that gets swapped from person to person until the original owner needs to retrieve the object and swap item for item until he can get it back for good. In this story, a young boy decides to trade his father for two goldfish, but when his mother gets home and realizes what he's done, he's told he must go swap them back, only to find that his friend has swapped his father for an electric guitar.

It was only until the young boy gets his father back that he realizes what a good father he really is, despite him never paying any attention to him or playing with him and his younger sister. The dialogue is witty, and expressed exactly as children would speak and behave.

Dave McKean (illustrator) is a renowned colleague of Neil Gaiman, and illustrates most of his stories and graphic novels. His artwork is a unique blend of art and real-life photographs, and adds great depth to the story.

The Day I swapped my Dad for Two Goldfish is a great story to share with children, as many of them may, at some time or other, have been able to identify with the main character. ( )

In the tradition of Maurice Sendack, who believed in showing the truth of the world-- however harsh or not-- to children Neil Gaiman does the same in this book. It is an amusing tale of a boy who trades his dad, who isn't paying attention, for two gold fish and is subsequently traded forward. It is a good reminder for parents to pay attention too, otherwise they might be traded away by their off-spring. ( )

A cute little story for children from Neil Gaiman. Dave McKean's illustrations are creepy as usual. This will probably end up on Sebastian's shelf when he's older. ( )