Mary Poppins

When the Banks children of Cherry Tree Lane need a governess, Mary Poppins arrives on a high East wind. Prim and efficient - and not a little vain – this proper British nanny would never feed her charges sugar with their medicine. As for singing and making a spectacle of herself in public – why, the very idea!

The fact that magic always happens around Mary, she ignores and denies, but as soon as the everyday world is safely given the slip, it does... and on special occasions, right out in public. (You'd be surprised how many ordinary-looking characters are at home out of the ordinary.) In case you're wondering, yes, there is Bert the Match Man, with his magic pictures, and there is a lucky chimney sweep in the Lane as well.

All of the Poppins books are delightfully illustrated by Mary Shepard, daughter of A. A. Milne illustrator Ernest Shepard.