Alfie Gets in First

A timeless picture book and the first in the hugely popular Alfie series.Alfie and his mum and baby sister, Annie Rose, arrive home after shopping. While his mum struggles with the pushchair outside, Alfie rushes inside and slams the door behind him. So now Alfie's stuck INSIDE and his mum and Annie Rose are stuck OUTSIDE without a key! Soon everyone in the street is trying to help rescue Alfie - but he's got a plan of his own . . .

“Shirley Hughes is a national treasure”

Enormously satisfying. The Guardian
There's just something so reassuring about Hughes' colourful drawings of the day-to-day activities that you know inside out . . . Words and pictures merge seamlessly . . . Hughes is a magical storyteller with an instinctive understanding of the mind of the pre-schooler . . . She makes the ordinary extraordinary Guardian
-- Philip Pullman
Text and artwork are both delightful and sympathetically balanced British Book News

Shirley Hughes illustrated more than 200 children's books and is one of the best-loved writers for children, known for her beloved classics including the Alfie and Annie Rose stories, and Dogger.Shirley Hughes was born in West Kirby, near Liverpool, in 1927, and studied fashion and dress design at Liverpool Art School, before continuing her studies at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford. She started her career as a freelance illustrator in London, illustrating other writers' work, including Noel Streatfeild, Alison Uttley, Ian Seraillier and notably Dorothy Edwards's My Naughty Little Sister series.Shirley began to write and draw her own picture books when her children were young. Her first book - Lucy and Tom's Day - was published in 1960, and she followed it with, among others, Dogger, and the Alfie series. Her books include the wordless picture book Up and Up, collection of rhymes and poems Out and About, and for the very young The Nursery Collection.She wrote two novels for older children, Hero on a Bicycle, about a 13-year-old Italian boy during the occupation of Florence, and Whistling in the Dark, set during the Liverpool Blitz. Her memoir, A Life Drawing, was published in 2002.She also collaborated with her daughter, Clara Vulliamy, on the Dixie O'Day series; which saw Shirley with an illustrator for the first time with Shirley writing the text and Clara creating the illustrations.In 2020 she returned to her much-loved character, Dogger, with a new story Dogger's Christmas.Shirley Hughes has won the Other Award, the Eleanor Farjeon Award, and the Kate Greenaway Medal for Illustration twice, for Dogger in 1977 and for Ella's Big Chance in 2003. In 2007 Dogger was voted the public's favourite Greenaway winner of all time. She was Highly Commended for the Greenaway Medal for The Lion and the Unicorn in 1998. Shirley received an OBE in 1999 for services to Children's Literature, and a CBE in 2017. She was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was the first recipient of BookTrust's Lifetime Achievement Award.Shirley died in London in 2022.

Alfie has won the race to be first home but - oh no! - he's slammed the front door and Mum and Annie Rose are on the other side. Even with lots of friends and neighbours to help, they just can't get in join Alfie in his very first adventure to see if he can solve the problem all by himself.

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