The critical consensus reads, "A bit alarming at first, Nanny McPhee has a hard edge to counter Mary Poppins-style sweetness, but it still charms us and teaches some valuable lessons. The movie starring Emma Thompson, Maggie Smith and Colin Firth took the best bits from the stories and adapted them into a fun story. First published nearly fifty years ago, Nurse Matilda and its two companion books- Nurse Matilda Goes to Town and Nurse Matilda Goes to Hospital-have charmed readers ever since. The movie stars Emma Thompson as a very unattractive (an understatement judging by the reactions of the other characters), magical nanny who helps bad children become good, shedding her ugliness along the way.

The sequel Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang (2010) is loosely based on the trilogy of Nurse Matilda books. It goes along well with my current fascination with the UK, and my overall love of old fashioned children's stories.In the end the children become good and decent, and Nurse Matilda leaves to attend another family of naughty children. Thompson's work on this film prevented her from reprising her role as Frasier Crane's first wife, Nanny G.

Nanny McPhee embarks on a brand new adventure in this brilliant, funny and captivating novel based on the new Nanny McPhee film. It was announced on April 12, 2018, that the movie will be adapted into a stage musical, [11] with The New Yorker reporting in November 2022 that the musical was scheduled to open in the West End in 2023.It can bring punishment or mercy to the Brown children, and the closer they get to being Good Children, the less ugly and the more goldeny and glowy Nurse Matilda becomes herself. Cedric swiftly understands his children do not like the bride and, recognizing that she is not right for him or his children, joins in the commotion himself. What really sank this collection for me was the sheer proliferation and uniformity of the Brown children.

Given two minutes alone and they’re playing practical jokes that make Bart Simpson look like Little Lord Fauntleroy. They are fighting wildly, wreaking havoc and destruction and ignoring Isabel's pleas to stop when there is a sudden knock at the door from, of course, the terrifyingly ugly, magical Nanny McPhee.

Besides their father, the only one the children will ever listen to is Evangeline, the family's uneducated but beautiful and sweet-natured scullery maid. The children (of which there are an unknown number) have very inventive ways of being naughty that would probably make children today laugh, but many of which are so over the top as to be obnoxious.