Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2006
Fancy Nancy by Jane O'commor, Illustrated by Robin Press Glasser
She wears a tiara and strikes ballet poses. Sandwiches taste better to her with frilly toothpicks stuck in them. A swanky word is always her preference over a simple one. In this larky and wittily illustrated tale, Nancy believes everything is better with frippery — including her family. She gets her parents and little sister gussied up for an outing to the King's Crown (a pizza parlor), where they keep their pinkies lifted and call one another "darling." Eventually her pretensions trip her up, literally, and she tumbles into a plain truth: some un-fancy things, like home, comfort and love, can't be improved on.