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Title:
Mary Poppins Comes Back
Series: Mary Poppins
#2
Author: Pamela Travers
Rating: 3 of
5 Stars
Genre: Middlegrade Fiction
Pages:
304
Words: 59K
A couple of teens in our church had done the play/musical Mary Poppins Jr and had to read the original book so they had the full story. I was talking to them and when they mentioned it, that was how I got the idea to read at least the first couple of books. I thoroughly enjoyed Mary Poppins and after their play was done, hunted them down and asked them what they thought of the book. They had a VERY different take on the original and one that I suspect was more about age and experience difference than actual literary evaluation difference. But their comments stayed in my head as I went into the next book and yeah, I see what they meant. I shall expound in a later paragraph.
When I did the Currently Reading & Quote post earlier this month, I said I was looking forward to Mr Banks’ old nanny, Miss Andrew, striking sparks with Mary Poppins. Well, there was a confrontation but there weren’t many sparks, mainly because Mary Poppins so overpowered Miss Andrew that it would have been like asking a log of wood to strike sparks from an axe. Mary Poppins eventually got so fed up with Miss Andrew, that when she found out Miss Andrew kept a singing lark prisoner in a cage, she put Miss Andrew in the cage and had the lark fly all over the sky with it, thus scaring the stuffing out of Miss Andrew.
In this book, it is Jane, the eldest, who has a “bad” day and is naughty, naughty, naughty (in the previous book it was Michael). She ends up inside a magic vase, trapped by an evil “grandfather” who wants new grandchildren and for them to never change. Mary Poppins rescues her but Janes’ takeaway is that it wasn’t really her who was being so naughty, but some other “Jane”. I have noticed this author doesn’t believe in the fallen nature of humanity. Everyone is basically good. Which is so much complete balderdash that you have to be deliberately ignoring the evidence in front of your eyes. Children ARE naughty and bad. They need to be corrected. They need to come to the realization that they are bad in and of themselves and that they will never be “perfect’ on their own. Until a person realizes that, they can never admit that they need Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
Ok, so back to my reading. When I was talking with the teens from church, one of their complaints about Mary Poppins was how she gaslit the children and that really annoyed them, hence their dislike of the first book. I had to laugh, because it happens just as much this time, if not more. Jane and Michael will see something, like Mary Poppins coming down at the end of Michael’s kite (how she came back) and when they mention it to her, Mary Poppins acts outraged and like it couldn’t possibly have happened. Being children, they are not so sure of themselves, but the author always has them see some bit of evidence at the end of the chapter so they KNOW they did see what they thought they saw. I found it extremely amusing but I guess from a teenager’s view point I could understand why they wouldn’t like that. Getting older has brought me so many benefits that sometimes I forget and it takes talking to someone who hasn’t gotten to my place yet to remember just how blessed I am.
I also found out there are EIGHT Mary Poppins books. I just have the omnibus collecting the first four. Depending on how the next two go will determine if I try to track down the other four.
★★★☆☆
From Wikipedia
Nothing has been right since Mary Poppins left Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane. One day, when Mrs. Banks sends the children out to the park, Michael flies his kite up into the clouds. Everyone is surprised, when Michael reels his kite in, to find that Mary Poppins is at the end of the string. She takes charge of the children once again (though she'll only stay "'til the chain of her locket breaks"). This time, Jane and Michael meet the fearsome Miss Andrew, experience an upside-down tea party, and visit a circus in the sky. In the chapter "The New One" a girl, Annabel, is born into the Banks family, and concludes the family of now five children: three daughters and two sons. As in Mary Poppins, Mary leaves at the end (via an enchanted merry-go-round, throwing her locket towards the children as she disappears), but this time with a "return ticket, just in case" she needs to return.
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