Mary Poppins

January 1, 2015

Gr 3-6-The tale that has captured the imaginations of generations of children and spawned a beloved and classic motion picture starring Julie Andrews as well as a dazzling Broadway musical, begins with the eponymous nanny blowing in to Number Seventeen to care for the Banks children just in the nick of time. From a tea party on the ceiling to riding on peppermint horses, rather unusual and surprising adventures await Jane and Michael whenever Mary Poppins pops in. This 80th anniversary edition includes the four original books, Mary Poppins (originally published 1934), Mary Poppins Comes Back (originally published 1935), Mary Poppins Opens the Door (original published 1943), and Mary Poppins in the Park (originally published 1952) grouped into one convenient volume. Beyond the handsome package-a rich brick red cover accented with black and gold spot-gloss decoration-the deeper gems of this edition are the extras. There's a foreword by Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked (HarperCollins, 1995) and Egg & Spoon (Candlewick, 2014), that relates the story of his nerve-wracking, but ultimately illuminating, meeting with the great P.L. Travers when she was in her nineties. Maguire accurately captures the difference between the silver screen versions and the original tales: "The books...show glimmers of a far more mysterious and even dangerous world. For thirty years before the nanny began to sing on the screen, she stalked the pages of these books with ferocity, vanity, and power." At the end there's a brief excerpt from a talk Travers gave at the Unversity of Connecticut in 1974 entitled "On Not Writing for Children." Librarians and students of children's literature would do well to think on Traver's reluctance to call herself a "children's book author," for, as she states, "every book is a message, and if children happen to receive and like it, they will appropriate it to themselves no matter what the author may say nor what label he gives himself." A must-have for diehard fans and, though a tad bulky for little hands, nevertheless an excellent addition to home, library, and school collections.

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2015
With a graceful introduction by Gregory Maguire about his meeting with Travers in the 1990s, this omnibus edition contains Mary Poppins, Mary Poppins Comes Back, Mary Poppins Opens the Door, and Mary Poppins in the Park, all illustrated with Mary Shepard's original drawings. An excerpt from Travers's "On Not Writing for Children" is appended to the hefty but manageable volume.

(Copyright 2015 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)