'Joanna had scraped up the uneaten rice pudding from all the plates and stuffed it into a spare pillow case. Louisa and Rebecca had collected the bunches of grapes which the patients' kind relatives had brought them, and were treading them into wine in the hospital hip-bath. Daniel had swapped round[...]
"Once upon a time there was a huge family of children; and they were terribly, terribly naughty." So begins "Nurse Matilda", the first of three books about the no-nonsense nanny who uses magic to rein in the mischievous children in her charge - and changes their lives for ever.[...]
Three original Nurse Matilda tales--the inspiration for "Nanny McPhee," starring Emma Thompson (who wrote the screenplay) and Colin Firth, set for release by Working Title/Universal Pictures in March--are collected for this omnibus volume. A governess uses magic to reign in the seven ne'er-do-well c[...]