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Mary Poppins (Odyssey Classics) (平装)
by P. L. Travers
| Category:
Story, Magic, Ages 9-12, Children's books |
| Market price: ¥ 88.00
MSL price:
¥ 78.00
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| Stock:
In Stock |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
A British middle class classic of the world's favorite nanny that will leave kids memories treasured for a lifetime, showing that all that wonder lies behind even the most mundane things. |
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AllReviews |
1 Total 1 pages 10 items |
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Jesse Williamson (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
This book is just wonderful, and I find it difficult to imagine any child who loves reading not liking it. It has a sense of mystery, even sanctuary about childhood. In the end, I read it as a fairy story, although I'm sure that there are other paths just as rewarding. In any case, it's got elements of the fantastic, just a little hint of romance, a drop of melancholy, and enough humor and imagination to keep both younger and older readers entertained and smiling. In its own way it made my soul feel a little happier on the day I read it, and it's for that more than anything that I recommend it. |
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Lara Means (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
I bought a copy of this book when I was 9. I read it, loved it, but as any child would, eventually lost it. As I was going through a pile of stuff in the attic the other day, I came across it once again. The pages were yellowed and torn, and the spine was falling apart, but the story never lost its magic. I was engrossed in the characters' every move, and I actually cried when the book reached its end. I would recommend Mary Poppins for readers of all ages, for it is a work of art that leaves memories that will be treasured for a lifetime. |
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
Whether you're a child, a child at heart, or someone who wants to re-discover your childhood, read these Mary Poppins books! This is the first in P.L. Travers' Mary Poppins series. And no, Mary if not practically perfect, she is perfectly perfect! There are too many things that I love about these books to list them all: the comedy, the quotable quotes, the lessons to learn, the fabulous writing style. I'm so glad I discovered these great books; I urge everyone else to too at every chance I get! |
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
Mary Poppins is a wonderful book with many fantastic adventures. There is something clearly magical about Pamela Travers' creation. In fact, it was such a special work that Walt Disney spent 20 years thinking about this story and several years in correspondence with Travers to gain approval from her and the rights to make a movie based on her stories. Travers was quite reluctant as she had seen what happened many times when a film studio got a hold of a book. It was not until Walt met with her in person, in London, that she agreed-but upon condition. She had to agree with the work as it progressed, and in fact, remain as consultant to the film. Travers met Julie Andrews and thought she was absolutely perfect for the role commenting that "she certainly has the nose" for the part. After Disney spent 2 years working on Mary Poppins, Travers viewed what had been done, expressed her requirements, and continued as consultant on the film.
There has been much written about the faults of the Disney film. Many have said that the characters and the feel of the story are utterly wrong. That, in short, the story had been diluted and the vision lost. I submit that there has never been such great effort put forth by a film maker to create a film that would remain true to its original written form. There certainly were many changes made. The original story is not really one story, but rather, a string of adventures. This would not work as a film. What the Disney crew did was create a story line to stitch all of those little bits together. The film was probably one of the greatest musicals created. Travers, who was much like Poppins, herself was satisfied with the end product. This speaks volumes.
Read the books. Watch the film. You will not be at all disappointed. |
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
Mary Poppins and Mary Poppins Comes Back were among my favorite childhood books. Indeed, I still have my childhood edition, which contained both volumes, minus its covers and completely worn out with reading and reading again. You can imagine my delight to find the books reissued. I made sure my husband knew to buy them for me for Christmas last year. However, someone did see fit to change the chapter Bad Tuesday, in which Michael finds a compass which Mary Poppins uses to take them around the world. I suppose it was meant to make the book politically correct, but what gave the person who did that the right? It is too bad that today's young readers will not get to read the book as written. |
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
Mary Poppins is the absolute best book I have read in a while. Mary Poppins is the world’s favorite nanny. The main characters in the book are the children; Jane, Michael, the twins (John and Barbara) and of course Mary Poppins (the nanny). There are a few neighbors and odd people Mary Poppins know, but not mentionable. My favorite chapter was The Day Out. It was so magical and entertaining! I would recommend this book 9 and up, because some things children wouldn't get and others might think it was boring. The chapters "Full Moon" and "The Dancing Cow" were very boring, but good to read. Anyway, if you want a good book to read this summer, read this book! So creative and enjoyable! |
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Mark Baker (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
Katie Nana has left the Bank family in need of a new nanny. But before they know it, a woman blows in on the East Wind. Literally. She takes the position of caring for the four children, Jane, Michael, and the twins John and Barbara. But with her extremely prim and proper attitude comes magical adventures. A day in the park, having tea, running errands, and even Christmas shopping can turn into an adventure when Mary's around. And the kids love it. This most decidedly is not the Disney Mary Poppins. Disney toned her down significantly for his movie, making her heart easier to see. Still, it's there if you look closely in the book. I had forgotten just how hard it is to see at times behind Mary's outward appearance and actions. Still, the kids come to love her because they know where they really stand. As with all books in the series, this one is a series of adventures. Each chapter tells its own story, each story its own fun, magical adventure. Those looking for Disney's Mary will be greatly disappointed. But anyone looking for a fun series of adventures will find a woman who does care for those around her, even if it's not always super obvious. |
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
The book is actually a series of short tales of a fantastical nature. Sometimes the tale contains the requisite grain of wisdom and sometimes it is just silly fun. Perhaps the willingness to be light hearted is what charms young listeners. In addition to those already mentioned, there is the tale of the dancing cow, and a touching explanation of why we cannot talk to birds. Even though the book is quite readable for an 8 or nine year old, it is really best for being read to children. The adventures should be appealing to almost any child and the pen and ink sketches are a delight to look at. If you are considering buying a reprint edition, there is another reason why the book is best read out loud by a parent. In 1934, when it was originally published, a certain amount of cultural insensitivity was common, and while it did harm, it was not really intended to. In one story, 'Bad Tuesday,' the children travel the world to meet Eskimos, Chinese, Native Americans and Blacks. While all these people are stereotyped, the description of the Black Africans is atrocious. People of color will find it quite offensive. Thanks heavens, in the Odyssey Classics edition this has been remedied. It is the latter I recommend. It is a relief that there are publishers who understand the value of a wonderful story and will take the appropriate steps to keep it accessible. Mary Poppins teaches us all that wonder lies behind even the most mundane things. I expect I will be right there with Michael and Jane waiting for our magical nanny to return. |
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
Mary Poppins is a book about a family in the stifling "well mannered" hypocritical and malicious London suburbs of the 1930's. Kids who can understand Winnie the Pooh can understand the premises and get the ideas or at least enjoy the surprise adventures. It's a British middle class classic from the time of The Secret Garden, but it's much subtler. It's on the way to the classics of Dahl. Travers seems to me related, in her view of childhood, to such writers as Bertrand Russell and Virginia Woolf. This family (Mr. and Mrs. Banks) is represented by varying degrees of imagination, and the parents even more than the servants are a dead loss. But the outside world includes some people who fire up the children, even just by their strangeness. The nanny, the queen of their lives, whom one cannot really understand, must be somehow made to fulfill the needs of the children. Because she is really there, close and intimate, and is quite sensible with them, her disapproval does not mean rejection. And in fact she likes them better than she likes their parents. For them she becomes a magician who produces wondrous adventures. Now and then Travers has her levitate-she's definitely a good witch. Travers' basic point, if you read her as an adult, is that children know how to invest with magic both the strange and the everyday, drunkenness and snobbery, tyranny, poverty, wealth, and the nonsense they are told about the big world. Her inspiring conviction, the one that really inspires her and us, is that somehow the childhood power of feeling excitement and trust, which are expressed by the imagination, redeems us. I bet most Americans over fifty, if they read it before 1970, remember it lovingly. Most of us who enjoyed the book want to pass on the classic children's book. We want to read it to our grandchildren. But I will skip the chapter called "Bad Tuesday." The children visit the four directions of the compass and, like true children of the center of the world, fly in the four directions of the compass. There they meet friendly but absolutely stereotyped Eskimos in the North and Asians in the East and, in the south, a black family who are just as friendly and just as much from an old British picture book in a grass hut in Africa, they speak something that uses "Ah" for "I." Aunt Jemima as the English saw her. This story, interestingly segues into, and actually seems to cause the events of "Bad Tuesday," when evil swells and erupts like a heavy hot thing in the very body of old Michael. He is rude and wicked, and he can't feel sorry. He enjoys upsetting people. We might say he manifests all day a furious disregard for the feelings of others. It is like anger, but it is not only anger. Can he be reacting to the destiny of belonging to the master race? That night he has a nightmare of the four peoples, those friendly simple Eskimos and Indians and warriors from Asia and Africa attack him. Mary Poppins picks him up and holds him, and dryly accepts his gratitude to her, while he experiences at last freedom from the "burning heavy thing" that he's been possessed by all day. The swaggering covered guilt, the guilt covered fear. Travers knows something. But can that save the book when the reader is a sensitive and sensitized child of color. Or for that matter, a sensitive and sensitized child of the "white majority" or "the mainstream." We are in a period when our children think in terms of insult vs. respect and they don't want to hear, or they do want to hear, insulting stereotypes-while closing their minds to the rest. They use their reading to shape their part in playground and hallway politics, without concern for the author's intended effect. For the same reason that older kids will not find it okay to read Huckleberry Finn, kids of color won't feel good about Mary Poppins if it is read to them or if they read it themselves between seven and twelve. Or at least a certain moment will bring up a sense of shame or anger. In the meaner white or Latino kids, including wealthy ones, there will be malicious pleasure in reading about the "inferior barbarians." For the more caring kids, there will be a twinge of disgust at the falsehood. And for the virtuously indignant, this is a natural opportunity. Under these circumstances Travers irony and awareness, like those of Twain, are going to fly over their heads. So, I say, skip those first pages of "Bad Tuesday" until the child is old enough so you can explain them. |
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Magico, Shanghai
<2007-11-08 16:30>
That's very good! When I was a child, I read the Chinese version of the book and liked the nanny Mary poppins very much. Imagine, 20 years ago! Now I'm glad to find the original edition! |
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1 Total 1 pages 10 items |
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