Alfie Gets in First

Today's book is Alfie Gets in First, written and illustrated by Shirley Hughes, first published in 1981, available at the Internet Archive.

Here's a YouTube read-along:

In this book, a little boy races to get home before his mother and baby sister... and when he gets in the house, he slams the door shut: he's locked in, and everyone else is locked out. While Alfie's mother and baby sister are standing outside, a neighbor comes by and tries to help. Then the neighbor's daughter. Then the milkman, who went to get the window-cleaner (everybody has ideas about what to do!). It has a cumulative effect:

Then Mum and Annie Rose and Mrs MacNally and Mrs MacNally's Maureen and the milkman all stood on the top step and watched while the window-cleaner put his ladder up against the house. He started to climb up to the bathroom window.

As it turns out, little Alfie just opens the door on his own, much to everyone's surprise.

This is not an especially exciting story, but it is a cute idea that could be developed in more fantastical directions, with a wilder range of characters and a wilder range of ideas for how to break into the house.

The "Alfie" character is the hero of a whole series of books by Shirley Hughes, who died just two years ago, in 2022. She is a two-time winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal for British children's book illustration. She wrote more than 50 books, and illustrated more than 200 books. Her Alfie books are the most famous. You can find out more at Wikipedia.