Edie and the Box of Flits

Kate Wilkinson's Edie and the Box of Flits is a magical London story for 8 year olds about a lonely girl who finds a whole tiny family living in a box left on the Tube.

What happens

Edie Winter has just started secondary school and it's going badly. Her two best friends have found new friends, laughed at her baggy uniform and stopped asking her anything at all. So she's spending half-term with her dad, who runs the Lost Property Office for the London Underground.

On the train one evening a teenage boy gets off and leaves a wooden box on the seat. Edie carries it back to the office. As she hands it over, she's sure she feels something flutter inside.

She's right. Living in the box are flits. They're like little people with wings, each about the size of her thumb. There's Impy, who is loud and bossy and very funny, her little brother Nid, who juggles beads and collects shiny things, and quiet Speckle, who is missing his twin.

Their home was attacked by magpins (nasty green birds with a crocodile smile). Their mum is missing, and so is the nut that holds their new baby brother or sister. And they want Edie to help.

The little details are just gorgeous. A bath made from an anchovy tin. Lego bricks for a table. Impy's coat of sweet wrappers, stitched with fuse wire to keep out hailstones. Who wouldn't want to lift that lid?

There's a lovely bit of worry underneath it all too. Grown-ups can't see flits, and nobody over thirteen can. Edie's twelfth birthday is only weeks away. Will she lose them?

It's really a story about feeling small and left out, and then finding you're needed. Edie's shyness at school is written very kindly, and it's a joy to watch her grow braver (and choose her own school shoes for the first time).

Each chapter is named after a Tube journey, with a list of the day's lost property underneath, which gives the whole thing a cosy, curious feel.

What to read next

If they love the idea of a secret world tucked into the corners of London, try Wishyouwas next. Penny finds a small talking creature in her uncle's post office, one of a hidden band who rescue lost letters.