SuitabookFly Me Home
Polly Ho-Yen
- Reading
- Read alongside the child rather than pre-explaining the magic. Pause after difficult family or school moments, name what remains uncertain, and invite comparisons between belonging, safety and familiarity.
- Themes
- Finding home after migration: Leelu moves to London with her mother and brother while her father remains abroad, and she finds the new city difficult to inhabit. The story appears to present migration through a child’s emotional and practical adjustment, leaving room for home to mean more than one place.
- Magic alongside ordinary hardship: Someone leaves natural objects as gifts, and Leelu discovers that they have special powers that may help her with city life. The book leaves its stance open to more than one reading.
- Family members under pressure: Leelu’s mother works nights and is exhausted; Tiber struggles with choices; their father is far away and the family has limited resources. The circumstances are treated as pressures affecting each family member, not simply as individual failings, while the full balance of responsibility remains unclear.
- Worth knowing
- The story includes separation from a parent, financial hardship, substandard housing, difficulty speaking at school, and an older sibling getting into trouble with a gang; some darker episodes may unsettle.