Mary Poppins illustrated by Lauren Child adapted from the book by PL Travers

 

If you want to share Mary Poppins with your child or grandchild I highly recommend this scrumptious illustrated edition. Mary Poppins was first published in 1934. For this book Lauren Child has selected seven of the twelve chapters from the original book - her personal favourites. In an amazing discovery I found I still had my childhood copy from 1958 and so I am happy to say the text has not been changed it is just a shorter book because Lauren Child left out five chapters (this is not important to me).

"I chose to set my illustrated edition in the 1930s echoing the period in which it was first published. Many of the characters' costumes are based on clothing from that time, although - because we can never really be sure where Mary comes from, or if she's even of this world - I dressed her in a more Edwardian style but with a contemporary twist."

See inside the book and here the seven chapters:

• East Wind
• The Day Out
• Laughing Gas
• Miss Lark's Andrew
• The Bird Woman
• John and Barbara's story (not seen in the Disney movie)
• West Wind

Here is a quote from the scene when Mary and Bert enter the chalk picture and Mary finds her clothes are transformed:

"She, too, discovered, had changed. Round her shoulders hung a cloak of lovely artificial silk with watery patters all over it, and the tickling feeling at the back of her neck came, the mirror told her, from a long curly feather that swept down from the brim of her hat. Her best shoes had disappeared, and in their place were others much finer and with large diamond buckles shining upon them."

I loved Mary Poppins as a child and I have a nostalgic memory of a Mary Poppins board game or it might have been paper dolls or even a jigsaw. I also loved the movie of course and I had this record too. More recently I used a song from the movie (not from the book) about suffragettes with my senior classes as a part of their democracy unit of work. 

From the movie I especially loved the scene when they all jump into the chalk picture - I loved their colourful clothes in those scenes, the merry-go-round and the delicious afternoon tea. I also wanted that carpet bag and her umbrella!

My copy of the book had this pink jacket.

Take a look here to see many other editions of Mary Poppins. My most favourite song in the movie is Feed the Birds. Here is the illustration of that scene by Lauren Child.

You should also look for these large format classic books illustrated by Lauren Child:

My friend an I have a plan to find the Mary Poppins statue in Ashfield.