The narrative throughout the book is interspersed with illustrations of scenes from the movie and photographs from the movie. Next, the publishers present full-page color photographs from the movie. The book begins with a synopsis of 'The Production' and short biographies of Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. The illustrations surrounding the photo include pigeons, her straw hat, flowers, the umbrella she is holding in the photo, and a pocket watch-all clues to what lies inside the covers of the book. Mine has a lavender background and a hand-illustrated frame around the oval photo of Julie Andrews in character as Mary Poppins.

The cover of the book I have is a little bit different than the cover image I'm sharing here. I also have several 'vinyl' records of her music including a Christmas album. I still have my set of 45 records with songs from this movie which I received for my seventh birthday! As an adult, I received a video tape of the movie in one of those fancy Disney video boxes they used to make. To this day, Julie Andrews is one of my all-time favorite actresses and vocalists. My favorite movie when I was a young girl was 'Mary Poppins'. It begins, “When I go, I will go with the horses/Look for me where the long manes/and the long grass are tossing together’’ and ends, “Do not look for me among the twittering birds./When I go I will go with the horses.’’ Georgess love of horses remained strong throughout her life. She was nominated for a National Book Award for her first book in 1968, “The Beasts of Never,’’ and wrote many reviews over the years for The New York Times Book Review. “I was splashed with yellow paint at a demonstration on lower Fifth Avenue and partially gassed in front of the Washington Monument.’’ “I was active in local and national political campaigns, civil rights organizations and a variety of now-defunct peace and feminist groups,’’ she wrote. She went to New York and got a job in publishing with Golden Press for two years and then, “spent three months traveling around Greece and Italy honing her language skills,’’ she wrote.īack in New York, she worked as trade-publisher for Doubleday & Co. McHargue graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard in 1963 with a major in history and literature. “The world as I knew it was entirely predicated on words - their use and misuse, their dissection, accumulation and glorification,’’ she wrote in an autobiography for one of her publishers.

She was precocious and a storyteller, even in kindergarten. She was often referred to as “Little G,’’ and, until her death, “G.’’ At 10 months, she posed for Squibb Cod Liver Oil.

She was born in New York City, the only child of Mac and Georgess (Boomhower) McHargue. Georgess McHargue was author of 35 books for children and young adults, some focused on archaeology, myth, and history.

Original mary poppins book