Pulled down from the clouds at the end of a kite string, Mary Poppins is back. In Mary's care, the Banks children meet the King of the Castle and the Dirty Rascal, visit the upside-down world of Mr. Turvy and his bride, Miss Topsy, and spend a breathless afternoon above the park, dangling from a clutch of balloons.

Still working but not sure how much longer the series could continue to be this enjoyable. There are some repetitive elements, Poppins staring at herself in mirrors, or denying that anything magical has happened. Also some of the plot outlines are similar but these are all minor things in the grand scheme. For now still charming.

In my review of the first book i compared Poppins to the Discworlds' Granny Weatherwax but at this point she reminds me of Doctor Who, especially the early versions of the doctor.

During the read i was wondering if the Mary Poppins stories count as magical realism but i then needed to define that term so i came up with this: "Magical Realism is when a story has magical (ie non-scientific) elements, said elements being neither Consistent nor Persistent".
I concluded Poppins was inconsistent enough but failed the second criteria because Mary and the magic around her was too Persistent. Anyway, sidebar over.

Overall still delightfully weird enough for me to continue the series. ( )

Without Mary Poppins around, the Banks family is not doing very well. Mary returns and the Banks children immediately begin their adventures. They meet the King of the Castle and the Dirty Rascal, visit the upside-down world of Mr. Turvy and his bride, Miss Topsy, and spend an afternoon above the park, dangling from a clutch of balloons.

There is a bit more darkness in this book than in the original. Mary Poppins herself is both more self-centered about her appearance as well as much crabbier to the children. Mary Poppins never explains how any of the magical things happen to the children and never answers their questions. It seems they are becoming more accepting of this in this second book, and just take her and the mysteries that surround her for part of who she is.

In this book we meet a new character, baby Anbabel. For the life of me I can't imagine why Mr. and Mrs. Banks keep having children they ignore and can't care for. These books were written in the 1930’s for an English audience but almost all children are familiar with the movie Mary Poppins and have wonderful memories associated with the whole series.
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Feels like a bit of a retread of the first book, with all of the same grim themes. Almost every chapter could be a one-to-one match with a chapter in the first book. If a winning children's book formula isn't broken, don't fix it. ( )

Audio version - I had no idea there are so many in the series!