Mary Poppins' Baby

P.L Travers is the creative author of the children's book, 'Mary Poppins' and the sequel books about this famous character. In the story, 'Mary Poppins Comes Back', a newborn baby in the Banks home named Annabel delivers a detailed description of her own recent birth experience. Keep in mind as you are reading this transcription that the narrator is a newborn baby girl and that the book was first published in 1935. In the story, the newborn is actually talking with a bird who has lighted on the windowsill and that the narration is being overheard by Mary Poppins who understands the language of animals, birds and, apparently, newborn babies.

Annabel moved her hands inside the blanket. "I am earth and air and fire and water," she said softly. "I come from the Dark where all things have their beginning. I come from the sea and it's tides, from the sky and it's stars. Slowly I moved at first," said Annabel, "always sleeping and dreaming. I remembered all I had been and I thought of all I shall be. And when I had dreamed my dream, I awoke and same swiftly. I heard the stars singing as I came and I felt warm wings about me. I passed the beasts of the jungle and came through the dark, deep waters. It was a long journey." Annabel was silent.

What is amazing to me as I read this story to my young daughters before bed is that the description is one that they can visualize even if they are really too young to fully understand the birthing process. At storytime tonight, my daughters looked curiously over at me but did not really ask specific questions like they usually do. The girls simply closed their eyes and accepted this unusual narrative as told by a baby to a nanny and a little bird in an English nursery long ago. The elegance of this type of fantasy storytelling and the gift of P.L Travers is that by creating a very simple dialogue, the reader is transported, abandoning reality altogether. As I read the story to my daughters, I became aware that this simple narrative was believable and compelling even though it was only a few sentences long. My girls believed it and enjoyed hearing the story for its prose and grace and are sound asleep as I write this entry.

Note: P.L Travers (1899-1996) was a drama critic, travel essayist, reviewer, lecturer and the creator of Mary Poppins. Travers wrote eight Mary Poppins books among her other works for adults and children.