Locked Out Lily by Nick Lake

MFSP is back!

After a break, I now feel ready to return to recording some of  my most exciting recent finds amongst children’s fiction. I will shortly catch up on the very best of those I have missed in my Books of the Year 2021. Meanwhile here is a very attractive, new arrival on my overflowing shelves.

Alone but not home

Locked Out Lily combines elements of Coraline with a sort of reverse Home Alone - and with talking animals thrown in to boot. Protagonist Lily’s perception is of being shut out from her familiar family life by her own recently diagnosed serious illness, exacerbated by her mother expecting a new baby, which is already preventing  Lily getting the attention she needs, and seems about to get worse. When her parents go off to hospital for the birth, Lily’s insecurity is acted out, both metaphorically and literally, through being locked out of her own home, now taken over by a chilling ‘replacement’ family. Fortunately, in attempting to reclaim the house, Lily is not completely alone but has the help of a crow, a mole, a mouse and a snake. However, their intentions are sometimes more constructive that their actual actions. 

Potent metaphor 

A relatively easy, accessible read, the book is nevertheless skilfully and often beautifully written. The text is littered with evocative imagery and succeeds wonderfully in pulling off the difficult trick of intimately mixing humour, terror and pathos. The character of Lily and her situation are authentically and vividly caught, the dialogue between her and the different creatures is often a delight, the presence of the ‘replacements’ in the house can be truly chilling, and aspects of Lily’s journey through the night towards a brighter morning are deeply touching. More than anything, the book is a simple but potent example of a narrative metaphor that will communicate emotionally to children  even it they don’t fully appreciate it intellectually.

Words and pictures

It is impossible to consider Nick Lake’s story outside the context of Emily Gavett’s copious and powerful illustrations, which are undoubtedly an integral and key element of the whole book. Combined in outstanding design, the complementary text and images not only make for a truly lovely volume to have and to hold, but also for a most affecting one. 

Although I did find aspects of it somewhat derivative, this is a fine novel in its own right. It needs to be introduced into many homes and schools and be borrowed extensively from libraries. It is a real boon to have such an attractive, accessible book which nevertheless contains considerable emotional richness, intellectual depth and fundamental humanity.