Anderson Rearick III’s Reviews > Mary Poppins Comes Back > Status Update

In the chapter 9, “Nellie-Rubina” we again see a quality of Mary Poppins not seen in films. She has a temper and the worst thing to do is to insist that some of the fantastic things she does or happens around her really do occur. She walks through insisting that there is nothing to see around her.

The eighth chapter “Balloons and More Balloons,” we meet the balloon lady in the park who advices everyone to take their time choosing the right balloon. When they choose correctly, the balloons have their names and they fly into the air. I have trouble trusting an old lady who calls everyone “dearly ducks!” Some make the wrong choice but find their match after all.

Chapter Seven, “An Evening Out” is a wonderful and strange chapter when again under the excuse of Mary Poppins’s allowed night out the children follow her under the cloak of darkness. This time they end up at a circus featuring the constellations and the moon and sun. The sun as ringmaster is also a courtier of Mary Poppins and leaves her with a kiss on her cheek.

First Corinthians 4:10 says “We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised.” First Corinthians 1:18 For the preaching of the cross is foolishness to those who perish; but unto us who are saved, it is the power of God.” Robertson Ay is the fool in the story and in the Banks home. She may speaks harsh, Mary Poppins loves him.

Chapter six “Robertson Amy’s Story” is an odd work that has a story within another.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And Cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:

All human children come remembering their profound and mysterious origins but forget them. Only Mary Poppins remembers.

In “The New One” the fifth addition to the family Annabel arrives. It seems clear that Travers draws from the aromatic Wordsworth. In his “Intimations of Immortality,” he writes the following:

The Topsy Turkey chapter has a romance when the cousin discovers that his landlady Miss Tartlet, goes from being cross and unpleasant to cheerful and bouncy when upside down. She was already balloon like but becomes bouncy with curls. Also like last time, Mary Poppins responds with fury when Michael suggests that her cousin is at all odd.

Chapter four, “ topsy-turvy” Is a lot like the adventure in the first book entitled “laughing gas”. Once again Jane and Michael go with Mary Poppins to visit one of her relatives. This time they go to meet a cousin who is a master repair person to fix the bowl that almost swept Jane away in her adventure. However they find when they arrive that everything in the man’s apartment is upside down.

Like Michael, Jane has a “bad day” in “Bad Wednesday.” The reason is never fully explained. However Jane inadvertently finds her self in a sub fairyland which threatens to imprison her forever. Again, the stakes in this adventure seem higher than anything that was in the first book.