Great Book for Nora's Kids Book Club, Good book to read to your children

As an adult, re-reading these two books was a different experience for me than reading them for the first time as a child. The nuances of the characters are better understood and appreciated; while I used to think that Mary Poppins seemed mean to the children, I see now her subtlety in that the magic isn’t magic if it is exposed to the “real” world. The life lessons that she teaches are still fresh, and the humor in the characters is abundant and definitely worth an occasional LOL. Mary Poppins’ deep mysticism comes across much more so now than during my first read, and after perusing a couple of biographies of Travers, I am quite impressed by this fascinating writer. I can’t remember whether I read beyond these first two books, but I’ll have to find out. ( )

The original Mary Poppins stories, infinitely more serious than the movie (though that is fun in its way); a bit didactic, but Mary Poppins comes across as a really powerful, almost mythic, figure. You can believe she put up the stars like Elbereth. The second volumes has some deliberate chapter parallels (Miss Larks's Andrew. Miss Andrew's Lark) as Lord of the Rings does with The Hobbit (Unexpected Party/ Long-Expected Party etc.) ( )

It takes a lot of chutzpah, or blind faith, to give a little boy two books about the same character before he's had the chance to determine whether or not he likes Mary Poppins and supporting cast. In my case, other than the uncle who levitated when he laughed, I found that I could easily take or leave Mary Poppins. So I left her, without even starting the second book. It's entirely possible that I didn't even finish the first book, since I don't recall how it ended. Did Mary Poppins end up slaughtering the family, or at least the children? Please don't tell me she did, for then I will deeply regret not having read much more about her. ( )

This is a lovely hardbound edition that collects Travers' first two Poppins novels in one book (in fact, a slight trick was missed in not including all *three* complete novels). The pairing works well as many of the episodes in the sequel mirror or respond to those in the original, such as "Miss Andrew's Lark" to "Miss Lark's Andrew" or "Bad Wednesday" to "Bad Tuesday."

Several of these adventures will be familiar to viewers of the Disney film, but many of the better ones go unknown: Mrs. Corry's gingerbread shop; the sparrow talking to babies John and Barbara, who grow out of the secret speech; a magic balloon vendor; an evening out with the constellations and a dance with the sun. Both books are highly episodic and, frankly, have more of an edge to them than the film (probably because they are authentically British, unlike Disney's pseudo-Britain). These are not the stuff of nightmares, but instead, they are strange and whimsical dreams. Recommended for all children. ( )