“Mary Poppins Returns,” which picked up four Oscar nominations last week, is an enjoyably derivative film that seeks to inspire our nostalgia for the innocent fantasies of childhood, as well as the ...

Travers wrote 18 books, signing them P.L. Travers, ‘‘hoping people wouldn’t bother to wonder if the books were written by a man, a woman or a kangaroo.’’ In 1934, the first of six ‘‘Mary Poppins’’ ...

2.After working on adapting the book for two years, P.L. Travers came to Disney Studios and apparently "didn't like anything" that was written. In recordings and sketches from a 1961 meeting, Travers ...

Part of the new film’s nostalgia, however, is bound up in a blackface performance tradition that persists throughout the Mary Poppins canon. Part of the new film’s nostalgia, however, is bound up in a ...