The Nanny Diaries is an absolutely addictive peek into the utterly weird world of child rearing in the upper reaches of Manhattan's social strata. Cowritten by two former nannies, Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, the novel follows the adventures of the aptly named Nan as she negotiates the Byzantine byways of working for Mrs. X, a Park Avenue mommy. Nan's 4-year-old charge, the hilariously named Grayer (his pals include Josephina, Christabelle, Brandford, and Darwin) is a genuinely good sort. He can't help it if his mom has scheduled him for every activity known to the Upper East Side.
Reginald Hill - Recalled to Life 1963. It was the year of the Profumo Scandal, the Great Train Robbery, the Kennedy Assassination -- and the Mickeldore Hall Murder. The guests at the Hall that weekend had included a Tory minister, a CIA officer specializing in dirty tricks, a British diplomat with royal connections -- and Cissy Kohler, a young American nanny who had come to England for love. And love kept her in England for nearly thirty years. In jail. For murder. Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel is convinced that Cissy Kohler was -- and is -- guilty.
Derrick, Samantha and Michael should be in school. Instead they find themselves in NASA's space shuttle, which Nanny Piggins manages to accidentally launch, blasting them all into outer space. This time she has gone too far! In this thrilling fourth instalment of her adventures, Nanny Piggins wrestles with a crocodile, bungy jumps of the roof using the elastic from Mr Green's underpants, staples chicken wire over their chimney to keep out Santa, captures an apricot danish-loving jewel thief and rescues her brother, Boris, from an onslaught of professional wrestlers.
In book five of her enthralling adventures, Nanny Piggins discovers some startling truths about the ruthless Ringmaster, provides counselling to a Moldovan princess with pre-wedding jitters, inadvertently wins a Nobel Prize while impersonating her sister and catches up with her favourite 4-tonne friend, Esmeralda the forgetful elephant.
Nanny Piggins gets in trouble with the law after some illicit tight rope walking, and is sentenced to 5000 hours community service. But she isn't the type of pig to take her punishment lying down, not when there are old people to rescue, pirates to impersonate and a great big bus to borrow.