Celebrated author Lois Gladys Leppard went home to the Lord on October 5th, 2008. Leppard’s Mandie series – consisting of 40 titles, with over 6 million copies sold – has brought joy and adventure into the lives of many Christian children and their families.
Over the past few years Bethany House publishers have been compiling the Mandie series into thick volumes, with five Mandie stories in each book. Our family has had the pleasure of reading The Mandie Collection, Volume 1 - containing the first five chapter books - for our bedtime reading over the past several months. The end of each story segues seamlessly into the next, creating a non-stop “Mandie-a-thon” for fans of Leppard’s work.
Included in the first volume are: Mandie and the Secret Tunnel, Mandie and the Cherokee Legend, Mandie and the Ghost Bandits, Mandie and the Forbidden Attic and Mandie and the Trunk’s Secret. New readers can collect the series at a very affordable price, and parents who fell in love with Mandie at the beginning of her literary adventures in 1983 can now conveniently share her with their children.
The story is set at the turn of the nineteenth century, and Mandie is a polite 12-year-old girl with a fierce streak of curiosity. This inquisitiveness leads her into many mysteries, adventures and learning experiences, along with her growing crew of friends. In some ways the Mandie series is similar to that of The Boxcar Children, a lengthy series in which the children solve mysteries and embark upon adventures with little parental oversight. However, I’m pleased to say that the Mandie books are written to gently stretch children’s vocabulary. They are not aimed at the lowest common denominator, but rather feature prose that is readable without sacrificing quality and challenge.
Young readers are introduced to Mandie and her unique family circumstances in Mandie and the Secret Tunnel. The book opens with Mandie attending her father’s funeral and unfortunately being subjected to a doctrinally unsound warning pertaining to the after-life. Sadly the only appearance of a pastor in this first collection of stories is of a man who preaches salvation by works, keeping the Ten Commandments, staying away from sin, living a “good” life with the threat of hell fire spilling into his words. This is terribly inaccurate – the only salvation any of us can receive is through the spilled blood of Jesus Christ, not through our own efforts.
In fact, I can’t recall any mention of Jesus throughout the first five books in the series, though God is often called upon and discussed. I took this opportunity to reiterate the basic concepts of the gospel message with my children to avoid any possible confusion. Thankfully this scene was brief, and we quickly moved on, establishing the foundation for the rest of the series – introductions to key characters and settling Mandie into her new role in life.
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