Fly Me Home by Polly Ho-Yen

In 2017 one of our large chain book stores added this book to their shelves and there it languished until May 2024 when I picked it up for 50% off the original price. SO, I wondered why no one had bought this book? The cover is okay - not very striking but not unappealing. I do know Polly Ho-Yen and I have read three of her previous books but perhaps her name was not a familiar one here in Sydney. The blurb is certainly enticing:

Feeling lost and alone in a strange new city, Leelu wishes she could fly away back home – her real home where her dad is, thousands of miles away. London is cold and grey and the neighbours are noisy and there’s concrete everywhere. But Leelu is not alone; someone is leaving her gifts outside her house – wonders which give her curious magical powers. Powers which might help her find her way home . . .

Polly Ho-Yen does not tell us where Leelu has come from, but we do discover the reason for her father's absence and knowing this you can surmise she has come from Nigeria or another African country where (spoiler alert) same sex relationships are banned. But these themes are not revealed until Chapter 42. Her father has been protesting against these laws.

Leelu and her family move to a new city and a flat in a very poor part of the city. Outside their flat there is a constant pile of rubbish. Mum has to work at night and so Leelu and her older brother Tiber stay home but then Tiber falls into bad company, leaving the house at night to meet up with a street gang so now Leelu (her real name Lillian Elvira Olawale) is left home alone. The neighbours on one side are a huge noisy family of young boys and one little girl named Betsy. Betsy becomes a wonderful friend to Leelu. School is a terrible experience. We are not told explicitly but it is clear Leelu has learning difficulties. Every task is confusing and impossible and so she just stops talking. In fact all the kids at school thing she is unable to speak. 

Early after their arrival at their new flat Leelu finds a small treasure near the garbage bins. When mum says she will toss a coin to decide who claims the bed near the window Leelu rubs her treasure in her pocket and wishes, wishes, wishes she will 'win' the bed so she can see the moon and know her dad is looking at the same moon too. The treasure works! But how? And where did this come from? On subsequent days she finds more tiny treasures - a walnut, an acorn, some moss in a match box and a pinecone. Each one works but only once. The Leelu meets the other neighbour - an eccentric man whose home is filled with objects just like her treasures.

He has a strange way of talking and never seems to directly answer her questions but along with Betsy, Leelu is sure she has found a special friend. Especially as thing are becoming desperate, and she has no idea when her dad will come, and her brother is clearly in trouble and then mum gives up her job and the landlord wants his rent - now!

Here are a few phrases by Bo:

"Heads, shoulders, needs, and toes"; "Of course, a horse, of course"; "I am trying to do something quite splentacular"; "And then it might be too late. Tick tock, tick tock."

Check out my labels for this post - if your school has issues with the themes of same sex marriage then this might not be the right book for your library. I loved the magical realism, the quirky voice of Bo (the man next door) and the way Polly Ho-Yen paints a picture of the cold and dirty city. Some reviewers and booksellers list this book for 9-12 but I am going to say mature readers 11+. Even though it was published in 2017 this book is still available or you might find it in a library. 

Here are other books by Polly Ho-Yen:

How I saved the world in a week

Two Sides

The boy who grew a tree