Nanny Piggins and the Rival Ringmaster

R.A. Spratt (author)

Random House, Australia: 2011

ISBN: 9781864718157

Genres: adventure, fantasy

Issues: imagination

This, the fifth title in the Nanny Piggins series sees the astonishingly gifted pig once again leading the three Green children into madcap adventures, most of which involves large quantities of chocolate and cake (or chocolate cake), astounding feats of agility and encounters with eccentric characters.

The Ringmaster is back with all his usual wicked plans but it seems that he has a rival – someone who is signing Nanny Piggins' former colleagues up for fifty year contracts and then destroying their talent and their self-esteem. Can Nanny Piggins and the children defeat this rival ringmaster and rescue Esmeralda the elephant, the strong man, the world's most beautiful bearded lady and their other friends before it's too late? And just in case she doesn't have enough to do, Nanny Piggins finds herself providing relationship counselling to a Moldavian princess with a fondness for cake, discovering Mr Green's first name (and dragging him to a school reunion where she makes some unexpected discoveries about his peers), inadvertently winning a Nobel Prize while protecting one of her fourteen identical sisters from abduction attempts, and revolutionising weddings. Who wouldn't want to have a nanny like this – especially when you have the world's most boring father?

Nanny Piggins is a wonderfully anarchic character that will appeal to almost any young reader as well as their parents. She has the manic energy and subversive attitude familiar to readers of Pippi Longstocking and the magic touch of Mary Poppins, although Nanny Piggins has a very different attitude towards discipline – and sugar. Spratt's lively writing and crazy adventures will have readers laughing out loud – and reaching for the chocolate. Oh, and get your mops ready to clean the kitchen because just as soon as your kids have finished reading they're going to be reaching for the cake recipes!

Great fun for children and adults. Definitely written to be shared!