When I went looking on the web to find out the English name of Jane O'Connor's series of books about a little girl who wants to be chic, I was a little taken aback to discover she's Fancy Nancy. We've been reading Mademoiselle Nancy to Jeanne (age three and a half) for about a month in French. Nancy says she plays better soccer when she wears frou-frou socks, she thinks her family should take lessons in how to be chic, she loves fuschia (the chic or fancy way to say pink) and she is brought down to earth every time in a charming way, after having learned a number of new, gorgeous words.
I haven't counted, but there must be at least eight books in the series, some of which were developed to expand the horizons of early readers. The stories in French would seem to be particularly useful for kids in French immersion. Mademoiselle Nancy et le garçon de Paris, for example, takes place in some Canadian town where a newcomer plays "soccer" even though he comes from Paris: French kids would say foot. But who's to quibble when Nancy is there to dance around.
Nancy's love for fancy words can come in handy when you're trying to get a child out of a potty mouth rut. Jeanne thinks it's hilarious that there are other words for pipi and caca and actually will use them occasionally.
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