Nelly May Has Her Say
*Starred Review* When hardworking Nelly May takes a position as live-in housekeeper and cook for Lord Ignasius Pinkwinkle, she agrees to use his special names for the house and everything in it. She must call him Most Excellent of All Masters. His bed is his restful slumberific. His dog is his fur-faced fluffenbarker. The kitchen bucket is a wet scooperooty, and so on throughout the house, or as he would have it, his roof-topped castleorum. Late one night, when she needs to inform Lord Pinkwinkle of an emergency, Nelly May shouts out a warning that strings together one silly term after another. She quits. He asks her to return, and they come to a new agreement. While it lacks the economy of Joseph Jacobs’ folktale Master of All Masters, on which it is based, this picture-book text captures its spirit and interprets it for a generation that might never hear the tale outside this format. Brightened with cheerful washes, Cole’s lively pencil drawings illustrate even the potentially static house-tour scenes with animation while turning Lord Pinkwinkle into a character undergoing a transformation from snooty to aghast to sheepish to friendly. Expanding on a storyteller’s standby, this comical picture book is highly recommended for reading to groups of children. Preschool-Grade 3. --Carolyn Phelan