Naughty Nancy

by John S. Goodall

Nancy, a mischievous, venturesome little mouse, creates a series of entertaining crises during her sister's wedding and reception, in a wordless picture book featuring charming watercolor illustrations. Reissue.

Genres: Childrens, Picture Books

60 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1975

About the author

John S. Goodall (7 June 1908 – 2 June 1996) was a British author, watercolour painter and illustrator, best known for his wordless picture books such as The Adventures of Paddy Pork, although his output included more conventional pictures, and illustrations for a wide range of publications (including the Radio Times) and books by the "fictitious village schoolmistress Miss Read". Goodall became one of England's most beloved artists due to the subject matter of his works, the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

Reviews

[Hilary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful illustrations of a world inhabited by mice preparing for a wedding. As with several of the books we have by this author there is no text and the double page illustrations have a half page in the middle you turn to transform the picture, these work particularly well when it's a door, really fun to turn even for an 11 yr old and an adult, we were grown up about this though and took it in turns.

The illustrations tell the story really well, so much detail on each page. My daughter particularly liked this one. She thought Nancy was really cute and she loved the humour of this mouse getting up to mischief. She also said it was fun predicting what was going to happen in this story.

Two very minor downsides, personally I wouldn't use the word 'naughty' with a child, I think it's very confusing for them that it's used (in the UK) to mean funny and cheeky and for something they really shouldn't do, but this is only in the title. If you are buying this book, the recent reprint I bought has poor binding and printing of colour so when the flaps turn some things don't line up or are different colours.

A reread today 10th April 2019, still great fun to read!

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this wordless picture book, a little mouse named Nancy creates havoc at a wedding in which she is a flower girl. Goodall's illustrations are a delight, full of British settings and charming details--I love the contrast of the very proper settings and clothing with the funny expressions on the mouse faces! Especially fun is the "lift the flap" variation where you have a two-page spread for the illustration showing the first part of an event (such as seeing the wedding cake) and then you turn the little half-page flap and see the result when Naughty Nancy shows up (sitting on the wedding cake, ack!) Lots of giggles to be had here.

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't love this story as much as some others of Goodall's -- neither weddings nor bratty kids are favorites of mine -- but the illustrations and half-flap technique is still a lot of fun. Here's an example from Shewbettina of how the pages work:



I recommend The Surprise Picnic the most of his, if you can find it.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

The drawings are superb! Great!
A classic to go back to time and again.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved checking this book out of my library as a small child. The pictures are worth a thousand words!