Mary Poppins

Description

Discover the joy and wonder of Mary Poppins in the classic adventures! The original best-loved classic about the world's most famous nanny - Mary Poppins. When the Banks family advertise for a nanny, Mary Poppins and her talking umbrella appear out of the sky, ready to take the children on extraordinary adventures. Mary Poppins is strict but fair, and soon Michael and Jane are whisked off to a funfair inside a pavement picture and on many more outings with their wonderful new nanny! Needless to say, when at last 'the wind changes' and she flies away, the children are devastated. But the magic of Mary Poppins will stay with the Banks family forever. The original story of the world's most famous nanny, Mary Poppins, is a timeless classic that has enchanted generations.

P.L. Travers, born in 1899, grew up on a sugar plantation in Australia, one of three sisters. Pamela deliberately kept her life very private. She lived for a while in Ireland and London, and travelled frequently to America, where she was made writer in residence to both Smith and Radcliffe Colleges in Massachusetts. She also received an honorary doctorate from Chatham College, Pittsburgh. Although she worked as a secretary, a dancer and an actress, writing was P.L. Travers' real love, and for many years she was a journalist. It was while she was recuperating from a serious illness that she wrote Mary Poppins - 'to while away the days, but also to put down something that had been in my mind for a long time,' she said. She wrote eight Mary Poppins books altogether and several other children's books as well as adult books.

"Like all great children's classics, Mary Poppins is frightening and sad as well as magic and very funny" Observer "As I grow older I realise how much of my world view was created by Pamela Travers and Mary Shepard, her illustrator, or perhaps how much they took the things that children thought about the world and made them real, and gave us one adult who was, ultimately, on our side." Neil Gaiman "Absolutely alive, and aglint with magic" Walter de la Mare Mary Poppins is the Good Fairy, whom we are all seeking" Times Literary Supplement