Mary Poppins the Book

I found a 2018 Read Harder Challenge that I'm doing myself and on there was to read a children's book published before 1980.  That's easy enough, we have several classic children's books we love to read here like But No Elephants we just talked about, but I thought I'd read something a bit longer than a picture book.  So in browsing the shelves at the library I came across Mary Poppins First Edition 1934 Hardcover & 1962 Reprint EDITION SIGNED: P.L. Travers.  I was thrilled!

I grew up watching Mary Poppins   The songsare still ones I sing along to and it's still a movie I enjoy watching with my children.  After watching Saving Mr. BanksI knew I had to read the books one day.

191 pages is not much for an adult to read, but I felt like this book dragged on.  I was so disappointed.  I hate to say that I like the movie so much more than I like the book.

Before I go further let me give you the details on the edition I read...Written by PL Travers
Illustrations by Mary Shepard
1962 edition. 1934 copyright.
Young Reader chapter book.

This being a classic book there are many other editions but this is the one I read.

So what made me not like the book?  I think it all has to do with how I view Mary Poppins as cheery, and fun and loving, but in the book she seems to be so much more conceited, always looking at her reflection and how perfect she is.  That really started to bother me.  I know in the movie she's beautiful, and "Practically perfect in every way" but it didn't seem like she was always self absorbed as she comes across in the book.  I clung to this until it really ate at me.  As a mother of two little girls and a woman myself I know we all care deeply about our looks and others are quick to judge us on how we are dressed, but in a children's book I feel that we shouldn't be teaching our children that they have to look at their reflection and make sure that they are looking perfect all the time.

There are many differences between the book and the movie.  There are more adventures in the book.  The outings with Mary Poppins are never dull.  Each moment the kids are with her something magical happens.  Which I love!  What I don't like is that after this magical adventure happens and it's back to reality the children are wondering if this crazy adventure happened and Mary Poppins blows it off like it's nonsense.  The story seems to have a constant fight between children's imaginations and reality constantly contradicting each other.  This makes me almost sad.  We want our kids to have imaginations but then shatter them by saying "that's not possible" "stop day dreaming" yet maybe if we let them have their day dreams without bursting their bubbles they can do the impossible and will one day write about their crazy imagined world and take us to it.

I wish the lessons the children learned were a little more clear in the book.  Michael wakes up in a foul mood and is nasty to everyone, then he gets scared and is all better?  No, I wanted him to see how he hurt others and make appoligies not just move on to the next chapter.

There are six different books so the story does continue on and I could be missing so much by not having read all of them.  There were many good reviews of the original Mary Poppins on both GoodReads and Amazon.  66% of the people gave the edition I read five stars and only 8% gave two stars or less, so maybe I'm the one missing something here.   If you are interested in all the books you can find a collection of them here:
While I believe that the reading level for this book is about 3rd-5th grade I did not read this to my children so I don't have their reactions to it.  This edition was above their reading level, however I did find a Little Golden Book edition that says it's for ages 2-5 that I'd love to check out:

It looks colorful and cute and I would like to see how they make it a short story, and it would fit in more with my girls reading level. 

There are hand drawn sketches every couple pages or so.  Some are small while there were a couple that were a full page.  I found the pictures didn't distract from the story, nor did they aid it, they just showed how the artist viewed one scene.

The Bottom Line: The movie is a must! 

• The Illustrations: are classic early 1930's hand sketches in black and white.  They neither aide or distract from the story but are nice to look at as you read along.
• The Storyline: has it's magical moments, but left me feeling lacking in areas.  As an adult I was easily distracted.
• The Movie: is a classic musical.  It makes you laugh, and will stick with you forever.  It's fun, colorful, and magical.  The songs you will find yourself singing over and over again.

The comments are open so please leave a comment if you read the books before the movie, if you read all the books and let me know what you think.