Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Did You Know? Mary Poppins

Yesterday, we had the pleasure of speaking with Mary Poppins. Today in Did You Know? we'll be checking out some little known facts about the Mary Poppins series of books by P.L. Travers. Let's seee what we've got here...



Did you know...
  • The first book, Mary Poppins, was published in 1934 and thee final book, Mary Poppins and the House Next Door was published in 1988? Overall, there were eight Mary Poppins books published in that 54 year period, all written by P.L. Travers.
  • Jane and Michael Banks had two other siblings? In the books, younger twins John and Barbara share in the adventures. They were left out of the Disney film.
  • The Disney film version depicted selected events from the first four Mary Poppins books?
  • Bert the chimney sweep was also a compilation of several characters in those first four books?
  • P.L. Travers was approached by Walt Disney about making a film version of Mary Poppins as early as 1938? She did not think that a film would do the book justice. She finally relented and agreed to a film version in 1961.
  • P.L. Travers' real name was Helen Lyndon Goff? She was an actress in her younger days and adopted the Travers name as her stage name.
  • P.L. stands for Pamela Lyndon?
  • She admired Peter Pan creator J.M. Barrrie?
  • P.L. Travers did not care for the Disney adaptation, particularly the animation sequences?
  • Although she never married, she adopted a baby boy from Ireland?
Although Ms. Travers disliked the Disney film and animation, I happen to really like it. So, with all due respect to her, here is a classic clip from the film:


2 comments:

  1. Okay- I just learned a ton! I loved the movie and just realized that I never read the book. I will have to read it- it sounds like it has a lot to offer. Can't wait to check out the series of Mary Poppins stories.

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    1. What I can't believe is that the eight books in the series were written over the course of more than 50 years. There was a long stretch of time between a few of those books, but she wrote one or two of them in her eighties and lived into her upper nineties!

      Thanks for reading!
      Greg

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