Mary Poppins. Revised ed. / P.L. Travers ; illustrated by Mary Shepard. Originally published 1934.

DH and I recently saw the movie Saving Mr. Banks which we both enjoyed very much despite (IMHO) its rather slow beginning. For those who have not heard about the movie, it portrays the interaction of Walt Disney and his staff with P.L. Travers in the adaptation of the novel for film. Below is the link to the Wikipedia entry for the author. I have seen the Mary Poppins movie several times and it is one of my favorites. Saving Mr. Banks, made me see the Mary Poppins movie in a different light and I was curious to find out what the book was like. There are five other novels in the series that follow this initial volume.

The Mary Poppins character in this book is not the firm but kindly nanny as depicted by Julie Andrews. She is shown to be far more complex in the novel, being very vain, rude to the children and in fact, she behaves like a "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." She introduces the children to lovely fantasy experiences but when outside of the fantasy, she is regularly demeaning to the children. For example, when they are all out shopping and Michael wonders when they will return home, "Mary Poppins turned and regarded him with something like disgust." She seems to do this to establish herself as the authority figure who is not questioned. This demeaning of children by a parental figure is echoed in one of the fantasy experiences where a mother speaks abusively to her two adult daughters who are frightened of her. The mother says, " 'Look at her! Just look at her! Cowardly-custard! Cry-baby!' She shrieked, pointing her knotty finger at her daughter." Not so lovely for the children to view.

Mary Poppins is not conventionally religious. One of the fantasies has her being encircled by animals in a ritual, "wildly crying their Jungle songs," celebrating her birthday occurring on a full moon. One of the creatures is Hamadryad (King Cobra) who is her cousin and who kisses her in greeting. He says to the children, "Bird and beast and stone and star -- we are all one, all one --" During Christmas shopping (with no mention of Christian beliefs), Mary Poppins and the children encounter the star Maia who has descended from the sky to also shop. Maia is known in Greek mythology as the mother of Hermes, the messenger god.

In my opinion, the gift that Mary Poppins gives to the children is the idea that fantasy can enrich ordinary experiences and make life magical, taking one away from the mundane and harshness of everyday life.

Mr. and Mrs. Banks, the parents of the children, are not often seen in the book and almost never interact with the children. There is not the joyous uniting of parents and children as shown at the end of the Mary Poppins movie. The book ends with Mary Poppins leaving without telling the children or Mrs. Banks, although she has left tokens for the children showing that she will return. The next book in the series is Mary Poppins comes back.

Here is a link that might be useful: P.L. Travers Wikipedia entry

This post was edited by stacey_mb on Thu, Feb 6, 14 at 10:35