When she was twenty years old, Nina Stibbe moved to London to become a live-in nanny to two spirited young boys, Sam and Will Frear, whose no-nonsense mother, Mary-Kay Wilmers, was the deputy editor of the London Review of Books. Stibbe's memoir, Love, Nina: a Nanny Writes Home is a funny and heartwarming work that is comprised of the humorous and detailed letters of everyday life in the Frear-Wilmer's household that Nina wrote to her sister, Vic, during her time as the boys nanny.
Love, Nina received a starred review from Booklist: "Nina herself, then just 20 and new to the task of being a nanny, was a lover of London and quite the observer, documenting for her sister back home the who, the when, and her full-blown, clever, open-eyed take on the what of life at the Wilmers-Frears. Stibbe notes that nannying is "not like a job really, just like living in someone else's life," but what a funny, artist-filled life she lived, and how well she watched and participated. This is an offbeat paean to families, real and cobbled-together, to sisters and siblings, and to communicating with love. It's also a rare and wholly delectable epistolary slice of life."
Love, Nina received a starred review from Booklist: "Nina herself, then just 20 and new to the task of being a nanny, was a lover of London and quite the observer, documenting for her sister back home the who, the when, and her full-blown, clever, open-eyed take on the what of life at the Wilmers-Frears. Stibbe notes that nannying is "not like a job really, just like living in someone else's life," but what a funny, artist-filled life she lived, and how well she watched and participated. This is an offbeat paean to families, real and cobbled-together, to sisters and siblings, and to communicating with love. It's also a rare and wholly delectable epistolary slice of life."
