Fancy Nancy

           My niece one of the best things that happened to me in my entire life. I was her nanny for the first full year of her life so she is very much like my own child. I know everyone says this about the children they know, but honestly, she is spectacularly intelligent, funny, sweet, and beautiful! At 18 months she knew her entire alphabet (including the “sing with me” section), how to could to ten, and had about 250 words in her vocabulary. Now she is moving on to full simple sentences, and three syllable words! For those of you that don’t know, those are things normal 2 and 3, year old kids should be doing.

          
           So what books should this bright diva in training be reading? It is our never ending search these days. I hope we have found the right fit in the wonderful short stories, “Fancy Nancy” by Jane O'conner and Robin Preiss Glasser. These books follow a fabulous little girl through her days and attempts to make the world “fancy”. From dressing up her family with feather boas and glitter shoes for a trip out for ice cream, to having a tea party with her best friend. I am a huge fan of these books! But, her comes the downfall. The balance of word and image is off. The illustrations are amazing! Pinks, purples, glitter, and metallic embellish everything. The detail is fantastic as well, in the background things like a coat-stand with labels of fancy and non-fancy items, really set the mood for the book. The text is lacking any pizzazz and literary weight. Every story is centered on Nancy making something or doing something “fancy” but she falters at least once as well. In the trip to the ice cream shop, as she carries the tray of sundaes back to the table she trips and falls, throwing ice cream all over the floor, herself, and neighboring people. The story simply says she was embarrassed and asks to leave. If feels as though there are a few pages missing here. There is no real resolution to the mishap; they just go home, she gets cleaned up and they have ice cream at home.

            “Fancy Nancy” may be the one of the cutest books I have come across in a long time, but it is definitely not the best. Its as if publishers consider children’s books as lesser literature. After all, they are just kids, what do they know? This is upsetting because literature has become such a lost art form. Now should be the time that we make youth fall in love with the written word. If a short story is unable to be complete to an adult, why should we ask a child to learn this? 


There is more Fancy here http://www.fancynancyworld.com/