Customer Reviews

Mary Poppins: Three Enchanting Classics: Mary Poppins, Mary Poppins Comes Back, and Mary Poppins Opens the Door

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when you used to find a nice quiet spot, away from all disturbances
and jump headfirst into the adventures of the Banks children and Mary Poppins? I do. These stories are among the best children's literature ever written. They are right up there with the Chronicles of Narnia and Alice in Wonderland and all those British classics. Take my advice. Grab the entire series. Find a nice quiet spot. And go and visit Cherry Tree Lane.

The original Mary Poppins books are magical. There's the story of Michael, Jane and Mary Poppins going to the gingerbread shop where the little old lady who owned it asked the children what their favorite cancy was and then, to their amazement, broke off one of her fingers for Jane and Michael and the twins and lo and behold, they were candy and the old lady's fingers grew right back magically.

She had to hulking daughters named Fannie and Annie. Mary Poppins bought gingerbread which was square and wrapped in tinfoil with silver stars on the front for the children. The old lady asked the children where they kept their stars and they told her they were in a shoebox in their closet. They noticed the old lady and Mary Poppins exchanging glances. That night when they were supposed to be asleep Mary Poppins came into their room and in the dark took something out of their closet and left the room silently. They heard a noise outside and ran to the window to look. There were Fannie and Annie under the nagging instruction of their little mother, leaning two huge ladders against each other; they stretched up into the sky. Then Mary Poppins and the little old lady, buckets of paste in hand, climbed the ladders and pasted the gingerbread stars onto the sky. I am 72 - read that story when I was just a girl and remember it nearly word for word.

Wonderful, magical stories - all tweaking the imaginations of children from one generation to the next. Mary Poppins wasn't pretty and sweet - she was stern, unsmiling and demanded respect and the children loved her dearly and everyone who reads these books knows that Mary Poppins loves them too.

I highly recommend these stories for anyone who wants their children to use their imaginations. They may have been written in the 30's - my sister and I read them in the 40's, but I guarantee they'll be delighted with the stories and will beg to hear a new one every night and will be disappointed when every book has been read.

I don't know how the woman with all the negative comments could possibly have misinterpreted these books the way she has. I suggest she donate them to a library since she hates them so much - no doubt they'd be delighted to have them. As Anne of Green Gables would say, the lady has absolutely "no imagination"!

My 9 year old grandniece loves reading and was very excited to receive this collection.

The most enchanting experience for a child
Filled with a mixture of fantasy and order and fun that will mediate the smashing violence of the media and transport the child to the place
in which they can dwell before the world is "too much with them"

It has been many years since I have read these-but I remember them still. I could find them on my hometown library shelf with a blindfold these 30 years later, as I checked them out OVER and OVER again! So many fanciful stories full of imagination. I remember particularly Jane and Michael's young twin siblings being able to talk to birds and animals when they were still babies, and the birds telling them that as they grew older, they would "forget" just as all grownups do. It was so poignant, sweet, and sad! As another reviewer wrote, the story about the gingerbread stars is also one of my favorites. Be advised, this is not the Disney version. P.L. Travers' version came FIRST, and is so much better!

I purchased these books for my wife and upon my recent inquiries she has informed me that they are delightful.

So you love the movie, and your kids do too? Don't think that these books resemble the movie. These books were written in the 1930's, and read like it. The text is very clunky, stilted, and uninteresting.

In my opinion these books should be left to anthropologists, and people writing theses on the history of children's literature; they're really not interesting to modern kids. I like classics, by the way, and encourage kids to read simplified versions of Tom Sawyer, Gulliver, Treasure Island, etc.

One positive thing: scanning through these books really gives me a new appreciation for how Hollywood geniuses can make a silk purse from a sow's ear.