A Dream Blows In On The East Wind

This series of eight children's books appeared from 1934 to 1988, illustrated by Mary Shepard

I have, at long last, been reading P.L. Travers’ tales of Mary Poppins.

The stories proceed with an oddly appealing dream logic, somewhat similar to the SF novels of A.E. Van Vogt or the Fantomas novels by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain.

Impossible occurrences are continually mixed in with mundane ones, and some characters are always incapable of noticing them. The nanny Mary Poppins herself is refreshingly curt and sometimes unreasonable. She is inexplicable, a dreamlike fait accompli.

I can see how the stories, with their Cat-in-the-Hat flavor of safely hidden anarchy, would appeal to children. They’re better than the movie, which subjected the character to the inevitable Disney blandification process.