Review - Fancy Nancy: Nancy's Ghostly Halloween

Fancy Nancy: Nancy's Ghostly Halloween (Fancy Nancy)
adapted by Krista Tucker
illustrated by the Disney Storybook Art Team
Date: 2018
Publisher: HarperFestival
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 24
Format: e-book
Source: library

Nancy can't wait to go trick-or-treating with Bree and JoJo, and to show off her fancy butterfly costume. But when something spooky catches their eye, the girls are in for a ghostly surprise.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I thought the other Fancy Nancy Halloween book I read was pretty weak, but this one is even worse. Based on an episode of the TV show, Nancy's Ghostly Halloween features an implausible plot and misses out on the fanciness that makes the character so special.

Nancy, Bree, and JoJo are going trick-or-treating. By themselves. Yes, in TV land, apparently a couple of six-year-old girls are responsible enough to take a three-year-old out to wander the streets in the dark. When the girls go out, JoJo is immediately frightened by a sheet, thinking it's a ghost. The older girls try to reassure her, but then JoJo accidentally gets covered in Nancy's cape and they think she's a ghost. They spend the rest of the book running away from the toddler they're supposed to be looking after.

I just don't like these books that are adapted from the TV series. I've seen a few episodes of the show now, and it's cute... but not as cute as Jane O'Connor and Robin Preiss Glasser's original books. Everything in the show is too slick, and not nearly fancy enough. (And what is the deal with Mrs. Devine? She looks like she got younger by about thirty years here!) Nancy is supposedly dressed as a butterfly, but really, she's just wearing a variation on her usual TV-show outfit with a pair of wings. (Look, the whole deal with Nancy is that she's fancy. Wearing the equivalent of your street clothes with a pair of wings--that can't even be seen under her cloak--is so not Nancy. At least in Candy Bonanza, she had a fancy costume befitting her character.)

The illustrations here are cute in their own right, but they're a bland representation of Nancy Clancy and everything she stands for. If you love the TV series, you might enjoy this book. Otherwise, give it a pass.

Premise: 2/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: 2/5
Illustrations: 2/5
Originality: 3/5

Enjoyment: 2/5

Overall: 2.17 out of 5