Nanny Mcphee―The Collected Tales Of Nurse Matilda

"A new generation of fans are likely to welcome Christianna Brand's brassy nanny, sent to tend the 'terribly, terribly naughty' children in the Brown clan, in Nurse Matilda: The Collected Tales, a reissue timed for the release of Emma Thompson's film adaptation." —Publishers Weekly

annies, nurses, governesses—call them what you like, they are a fertile literary topic. Here are three books fit to be shelved alongside Mary Poppins and Madame Doubtfire. . . The Collected Tales of Nurse Matilda, by Christianna Brand, Nurse Matilda and the sequels that took Nurse Matilda to Town and to Hospital—here tidily gathered into one volume—first appeared in England in the '60s and '70s. The opening sentence sets the tone nicely. . . The children are so numerous that, in fact, we never learn all their names, and so naughty that they make Supernanny's television charges look angelic. No nurse has yet survived them. Enter  small, stout figure dressed in rusty black . . . the ugliest person you ever saw in your life!?You know a sustained showdown is looming. What you don't anticipate is the magic, either Nurse Matilda's wizardry with the laws of physics or Brand's with words. The late, brilliant Edward Ardizzone did the drawings.?#151;Washington Post