Lily and the Night Creatures

June 15, 2022
When alternate versions of her parents invade her home, a young English girl must find the strength to vanquish the demons. Lily wishes things were how they used to be--before she got sick and before her mum got pregnant. When The Baby's arrival is imminent, Lily is dropped off at Granny's house. Missing the cuddly toy whale she sleeps with, Lily sneaks out at night and walks around the village toward home. There, she finds her mum and dad--but quickly realizes they aren't her actual parents. They are cruel parent-things with strange eyes like lumps of coal, and they tell her this is no longer her house. Outside, Lily meets talking animals: Crow, Mouse, Mole, and Snake. Over the course of the night, they help her try to reclaim her home. Lily ultimately learns to accept her chronic illness and become a loving big sister. This story beautifully blends horror elements with animal fantasy and realistic issues. The replacement parents are creepy and reminiscent of those in Neil Gaiman's Coraline, but there is plenty to differentiate the tales. The animals add humor and levity to the adventure, while Lily is believably frustrated with her sickness and scared that The Baby is taking over her place in the family. Gravett's illustrations add to the magic and whimsy; they are particularly striking when showcasing the animals' expressive features. Main characters read as White. An appealing tale of fortitude with just the right amounts of spookiness, playfulness, and heart. (Fantasy. 9-12)

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Starred review from August 8, 2022
Viscerally rendered emotions and resonant chronic-illness representation build to a thrilling collaboration that deals in horror tropes. Since her diagnosis, whose treatment reads as dialysis, Lily Wilson’s parents are “always telling her not to do stuff. To rest. To preserve her strength,” and Lily fears her soon-arriving sibling, The Baby, will replace her. Left with her grandmother when her mother goes into labor, Lily sneaks home “to remind her parents that they already had her,” but finds her house dark, “like someone had put out its eyes.” It’s occupied by her parents’ doppelgängers—coal-eyed and quick-moving—which plan to absorb her family’s life forces and offer to do the same for her. Though tempted (“No more hospital visits, no more tests, no more injections”) and doubtful of her strength, Lily, supported by four magical garden animals, works to expel the replacements, save her family, and reclaim her life. A Coraline-like plot yields the novel’s main substance: Lily’s rediscovery of her own self-worth following diagnosis and family changes. Employing concrete metaphors, Lake (Satellite) confronts taboo but important emotions, including jealousy and passive suicidal ideation, softening them with the animals’ optimistic banter. Grayscale illustrations by Gravett (The Imaginary) unsettle through off-kilter architecture and whimsical figures as, alongside Lily, illustrations and text evolve toward hope. All characters cue as white. Ages 8–12.

November 1, 2022
Part animal fantasy, part family drama, part horror story, this novel set in an English village opens outside a house at sunset with an anxious conversation among Mole, Crow, Mouse, and Snake: will the girl come? Will she win? The girl, Lily, is already having a tough day. After enduring dialysis and an iron injection, she must spend the night at her grandmother's while her parents are at the hospital having a new baby, a sibling Lily does not want. She also has left Willo, her favorite stuffed animal, behind. She sneaks out of her grandmother's house to go back home (it's nearby) and retrieve Willo; when she arrives, however, she finds not only the motley crew of talking animals but also her house possessed, Coraline-style, by two evil coal-eyed parent replicas. Told in third person from Lily's perspective, the story captures the frustration of struggling with a chronic illness as well as the character's inner determination. While she attempts to save her family, the animals never coddle her and need as many assists from her as she does from them -- and they also provide helpful comic relief during the scarier parts. Gravett's eerie illustrations capture the mood of the text and use visual cues, such as black backgrounds with white text when Lily is in the dark, to build tension. Full of twists, the story divulges key interpersonal details and magical elements with smart pacing, frequently allowing readers to reconsider everything from new perspectives. Julie Roach

(Copyright 2022 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from August 1, 2022
Grades 3-5 *Starred Review* In the tradition of Neil Gaiman's Coraline (2002), Lake offers up a creepy tale of a sickly girl who must face dark forces to save her family. Lily is dealing with a lot: frequent visits to the hospital for dialysis, the loss of her normal life, and the imminent and very unwelcome (to Lily) arrival of a new sibling. When it's time for the baby to be born and Lily is left with her grandmother, the girl becomes determined not to be cast aside so easily. Sneaking out of her grandmother's house, Lily bikes home to find her mother holding a baby--only it's not her mother. Her eyes are dark as coal, and she doesn't recognize Lily. And then she locks Lily out. The girl's shock and confusion are compounded when she retreats to the yard and encounters a group of talking animals: a mole, a crow, a mouse, and a snake. These creatures act as a delightful foil to the malicious "replacements" in the house, and they assist Lily in her new mission--evicting the impostors before her real family returns. Lake, assisted by Gravett's atmospheric illustrations, creates a truly menacing foe for Lily to defeat, but the process results in the girl's emotional growth and a much-needed shift in perspective. Rich with magic and a fair number of shivers, this is an empowering tale for the brave of heart.

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