AustLit

The first of P.L. Travers's novels about the magical nanny, Mary Poppins.

When Katie Nana, the much-tried nanny to the Banks family of 17 Cherry Tree Lane, finally storms out in a huff, the wind blows in Mary Poppins and her carpetbag. The Banks children find that Mary Poppins is stern, vain, and usually cross – but also has a touch of magic about her.

'No one had talked about fuel; what was the use of talking, anyway? But they all knew that engines which run on fuel have to run out of fuel sometime, and that the Egret just couldn’t keep on going for ever. They seemed to have been sitting in this plane, imprisoned, for days, waiting to die. Gerald just flew on and on as though he wanted to fly away to another world, almost as though he didn’t want to go down, almost as though he didn’t know how to go down.

When the Egret’s pilot dies suddenly mid-flight six teenagers, the only passengers on board, face a terrifying situation. Gerald has had some flying lessons, but he has never flown alone, and he has never landed a plane. Lost and afraid, they fly on as the fuel gauge drops and night closes in. Will they find a clear landing place? Could they land in the sea? If they do somehow land safely how will they find their way back to civilisation?'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Text Publishing edition).

'Outside, he sniffed the smells that hung in the quiet stillness - the bitter-sweet peppercorns and the tangy saltbush ... Even the dust had a scent of far-off places, as if it had drifted miles. It made you think of warm, red earth being blown along by the wind.

'In this timeless story, a boy struggles to come to terms with the loneliness of the Australian outback and the ruthlessness of living and working on a remote property. With Brolga the cattle dog and her pup Rags as his only companions, the boy begins a journey of self-discovery. It is a journey that will take him outside the confines of the Yamboorah cattle station, and into the vast, unrelenting sandhills beyond.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (UQP reprint).