Mary Poppins and the House Next Door by P.L. Travers.
Title: Mary Poppins and the House Next Door.
Author: Lois Duncan.
Genre: Fiction, YA, children's lit, adventure, fantasy.
Country: U.K.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 1988.
Summary: The residents of Cherry Tree Lane are distressed to learn that their beloved Number Eighteen, an empty house for which each neighbour has created an imaginary, wished-for tenant, is about to be occupied by Mr. Banks's childhood governess, Miss Andrew, otherwise known as the Holy Terror. Her dreaded arrival brings a pleasant surprise as well, for Luti, a boy from the South Seas, has accompanied her as both servant and student. Delighted by the prospect of a new friend, Jane and Michael are frustrated by the restrictions that the hypochondriac Miss Andrew has placed on Luti, who grows more and more homesick for his family and tropical surroundings. When the call in his heart to return home becomes more than he can bear, it is Mary Poppins who makes the trip possible by means of a visit to the Man in the Moon.
My rating: 7/10.
♥ “But that’s impossible.” Mr Banks was distressed. “We all like it just as it is. Every street should have its deserted house.”
“What for?”
“Well,” began Mr Banks, a trifle uneasily, “so that people can fill it with their own ideas, the kind of neighbours they would like to have. We don’t want just anyone, you know.”
♥ “How do you know Keria?” asked Jane. The thought of the Wise Woman far away filled her with a kind of dream. She wished she could know her too.
“In the same way that I know everyone. It’s my job to watch and wake. The world turns and I turn with the world; mountain and sea, city and desert; the leaf on the bough and the bough bare; men sleeping, waking, working; the cradle child, the old woman, the wise ones and the not so wise; you in your smock, Michael in his sailor blouse; the children on Luti’s South Sea island in their girdles of leaves and wreaths of flowers such as he too will wear in the morning.”
♥ “Tomorrow never comes,” said Jane. “When you wake up it’s always today.”