Review - Fancy Nancy: Fancy Day in Room 1-A

Fancy Nancy: Fancy Day in Room 1-A (Fancy Nancy)
by Jane O'Connor
illustrated by Ted Enik
Date: 2012
Publisher: HarperCollins
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 32
Format: e-book
Source: library

After a gloomy, gray week stuck inside at school, Nancy comes up with a great idea to cheer up her friends. Ms. Glass's classroom will celebrate a new holiday--Fancy Day! Everyone gets into the swing of things, practicing their manners and preparing for the party. But on the day of the celebration, Ms. Glass runs in late... looking quite plain. Can Nancy and her classmates doll up Ms. Glass and keep the party as elegant as expected?

(synopsis from Goodreads)

If this keeps up, Nancy's going to turn into a narcissist.

This is probably the weakest title I've read so far out of all the Fancy Nancy books. The premise is silly, and the boys' enthusiasm for the fancy party just doesn't make any sense given how they react to the idea of showing off their silly outfits in Fancy Nancy: It's Backward Day! (That book implies that fashion shows are too girly for the boys to be interested. But here, the boys are all excited about dressing up and using good manners! It's not consistent.)

There are three things that really bothered me about this book. First, it was implied that basic good manners are "fancy"... and therefore optional. That's not something I want to see in a children's book! Second, when Ms. Glass arrives late for the fancy party after a dental emergency, she's looking decidedly un-fancy. So what happens? The kids help make her fancy, of course... and I wouldn't have had a problem with that, but for the way it was worded:

Everyone helps dress up Ms. Glass.
It is like playing with a giant doll.

Yes. Let's teach children to objectify their teachers. Women are nothing but dolls to be dressed up, after all.

Third, the idea for the fancy party was Nancy's, and she knows it:

That evening,
I tell my family about Fancy Day.
"It was my proposal.
That means it was all my idea!"

At the end of the book, Ms. Glass has everyone thank Nancy for her idea. I don't know why this teacher is catering to this one child so much, but she's going to create a narcissistic little monster if she's not careful.

I did not like this one. (I seem to like these books more when they're about issues other than clothes or being fancy. Unfortunately, this title is pretty much all about those things.)

Premise: 2/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: 2/5
Illustrations: 4/5
Originality: 2/5

Enjoyment: 2/5

Overall: 2.33 out of 5