Mary Poppins by P.J. Travers - 2.5*

[Doughgirl5562]

Well, that wasn't what I expected at all. First, it's a collection of short stories and not a continuous story. Second, Mary Poppins is very stern and scowls a lot. Even when she and the children are doing something totally fantastical - like travelling to the four corners of the earth using a magical compass to talk to a polar bear, dolphins and other animals - she seems irritated. Maybe that's the way British nannies were perceived to be?

My favorite story was the story about John and Barbara - the babies. In that story I really felt the magic. It was sometimes hard for me to feel the magic in the other stories. I also loved the illustrations by Mary Shepard, such as this one done for the story involving the magic compass. https://www.google.com/search?q=compa...

It has been many decades since I saw the Disney version of Mary Poppins, so I rented and watched it for comparison. To my surprise, even the Disney version of Mary Poppins is stern (the father in the movie describes a British nanny as firm, respectable, no nonsense, and a General) but she always seems to be hiding a smile and has a twinkle in her eye. A few of the stories from the book were re-told in their entirety, and frankly I liked them more in the movie. Most of the characters from the book were in the movie, even if just cameos. The Bird Lady was a much more poignant story in the movie (probably because of the song). And I LOVED Admiral Boom - who played a much larger and more comedic role in the movie. My favorite story about the babies didn't make it into the movie though - because the babies didn't make it into the movie.

[Jason]

The movie "Saving Mr. Banks" gives a lot about the inspiration of the book and the making of the movie.

[Ellen]

Yeah, after years of Disney's "Mary Poppins" treatment, this was not what I expected either.