However, the beginning reader will require some assistance from a more experienced one because P.L. The tales although rather short keep pace with the eccentric aspects of the adventure books, the magic is palpable. In this second edition, colors light up the original vintage illustrations and energize the activities depicted on its pages, undoubtedly making the book more appealing to today’s young readers. (I found this picture on the Internet but I couldn’t identify its origin, so I am not able to give the owner any credits.)Īfter its first publication the book remained out of print in North America until 2006, when Houghton Mifflin Harcourt released a new edition. Each story is a snapshot of the daily life of the Banks family, outlined in black ink on a colored background. It contains twenty-six illustrated short tales, one for each letter of the alphabet. It was illustrated by Mary Shepard, the illustrator of all the Mary Poppins books. Mary Poppins From A to Z, as the title suggests, is an alphabet book and was first published in the early 1960’s. In this post I want to explore one of the lesser known Mary Poppins books, Mary Poppins From A to Z and its new adaptation for the very small, the board book Mary Poppins ABC (2018). However, a fact, even when forgotten or disregarded, still remains a fact none of the Mary Poppins adventures books were written especially for children, strange as this may sound. Understandably, mending broken things and finding lost possessions are not exactly themes appealing to young readers at the beginning stages of life. Their lack of popularity could easily be explained by the eerie mood of the themes explored in the stories and the evermore shadowy character of Mary Poppins.

Travers wrote them when she was well into her eighties. Nevertheless, they still deserve attention.Īs for the last two Mary Poppins adventure books, Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane (1982) and Mary Poppins in the House Next Door (1988), P.

The next two books, Mary Poppins From A to Z, (1962) and Mary Poppins in the Kitchen (1975) are companions to the adventure books and are the least known by the public.

The first four adventure books, Mary Poppins (1934), Mary Poppins Comes Back (1935), Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1943) and Mary Poppins in the Park (1952) are the most popular. The Mary Poppins magnum opus is composed of eight books written over a period of fifty years.

Pl travers mary poppins books