Book #117 of 2016:
Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers (Mary Poppins #1)
I haven’t seen the Disney movie of Mary Poppins since I was a very small child, so I can’t say how the film version compares to this novel. But I’m not exaggerating when I say that the Mary Poppins of the original book is a mean bully who berates, gaslights, and straight-up steals from the children under her care. I’ll grant that they seem to love her in spite of her cruelty, but this reader did not.
(Maybe I’m just not cut out for this sort of story – I also take the side of the fish in The Cat in the Hat, protesting that that stranger-danger feline should not be there when your mother is out.)
Mary Poppins is a strange fey being, and the adventures she provides are fairly inventive. But I just couldn’t get past how awful she was as a person.
★★☆☆☆
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