A wicked uncle is intent on getting his hands on the family fortune and the children miss their father who is away fighting who knows where, and then their horrible cousins arrive!

Blatherwick, a former military cook who declares that there will be "snow in August" before the family is put to rights. The film reunites Emma Thompson, Colin Firth, Thomas Sangster and Adam Godley who all previously starred in the 2003 film Love Actually. The entire book reads as if it’s in Emma Thompson’s voice (I would know since I was able to participate in a half-hour interview with Emma Thompson, right?Join our community to get personalised book suggestions, extracts straight to your inbox, 10% off RRPs, and to change children’s lives.

A year later her best-loved series character, Inspector Cockrill of the Kent County Police, made his debut in Heads You Lose. It was fun and I loved all the lessons the children had to learn and wished mine would learn them as well!In the second book, the children are sent to live with their domineering Great Aunt Adelaide in her London manor. At the gaudy wedding, the children pretend there are bees (inspired by the way Quickly told them to "behave," and baby Aggie repeating the word but pronouncing it as "beehive"), chase the guests, and start a food fight using banquet pastries. Having delighted generations of readers since their first publication in the sixties, the books have now formed the inspiration for the newly-released and fabulous Nanny McPhee, written and adapted for the big screen by Emma Thompson who stars as Nanny McPhee opposite Colin Firth as Mr Brown. The repeat of the naughty pranks the kids play as a list, to me, seemed tedious but it might bring giggles to kids by the outrageousness of it all. Much magic ensues including a crow that eats window putty, a sorcerously souped-up motorcycle, and little piggies that do synchronized swimming (yes, you read it right.