Fancy Flutterby: Fancy Nancy: Bonjour, Butterfly by Jane O'Connor

The latest of Jane O'Connor's tales of that fabulous, frilly femme, Fancy Nancy: Bonjour, Butterfly (Fancy Nancy), features a bit of gritty, if girlie, conflict in the plot which most families will recognize immediately.

Fancy Nancy and her best friend Bree are ga-ga for butterflies, pronouncing them exquisite (that's French for beautiful). Better still, Bree's birthday is coming up and she's planning an exquisite butterfly-themed bash to celebrate. Nancy is already planning her glitzy garb for the celebration, modeled on her favorite, the rare azure butterfly, and complete with iridescent (that's fancy for sparkly) wings.

Alas, Nancy's no-nonsense family informs her that she can't go to Bree's party because it conflicts with her grandparents' fiftieth anniversary celebration. Nancy storms, sulks, and scowls in disappointment for days before the trip. "Mad is way too plain for how I feel," she says. "I am furious."

Good granddaughter that she is, Nancy agrees to go along and finds the Country Squire Motel where the party is held to be quite elegant (fancy for "fancy."). Nancy apologizes to her family for her behavior and adds that she is ecstatic to be at such an extraordinary event. Best of all, on an outing to the zoo with Grandpa the next day, Nancy visits their gorgeous Butterfly Garden and gets to see a real azure butterfly. Ooh, la la!

As always with the Fancy Nancy stories, Robin Glasser's elaborate and "extraordinary" illustrations are half the fun of these light-hearted books. She packs in plenty of frou-frou for the girlie girls and slips in a few slyly humorous touches that adults reading these books aloud will appreciate as well.

The first two Fancy Nancy books are Fancy Nancy (see my earlier review here) and its sequel Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy (Fancy Nancy).