I read the books first because they were loved by my mother - her father heard Alec Wolcott's review on the radio and thought she'd like them, and she did - and I hated the movie. That wasn't Mary Poppins! Mary Poppins is mean! (and yet compelling.) I was nine, but I was embarassed by the dancing chimney sweeps and the general corniess of it all. My mother hates it too.