Mary Poppins Mary Poppins Mary Poppins is a series of eight children's books written by British writer P. L. Travers and published over the period 1934 to 1988. Mary Shepard was the illustrator throughout the series. The books centre on the magical English nanny Mary Poppins, who is blown by the East wind to Number 17 Cherry Tree Lane, London, and into the Banks' household to care for their children. Encounters with pavement-painters and shopkeepers, and various adventures ensue, until Mary Poppins abruptly leaves—i.e., "pops out". Only the first three of the eight books feature Mary Poppins arriving and leaving. The later
Mary Poppins with animals. With this second revision, original illustrator Mary Shepard altered the accompanying drawing of the compass, which in the 1967 revision retained drawings of ethnic stereotypes at the four compass points, to show a polar bear at the north, a macaw at the south, a panda at the east, and a dolphin at the west. "Mary Poppins" had been banned from circulation in the San Francisco Public Library system in 1980 due to the negative stereotyping. Nothing has been right since Mary Poppins left Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane. One day, when Mrs. Banks sends the children out to