Finally after several weeks, indeed months, we have reached the end of Milly Molly Mandy;  a kind of minor obsession with my 4, now 5, year old daughter.  Every story read from all the different collections on the library shelf:  The Adventures of Milly-Molly-Mandy,  Milly-Molly-Mandy Again, Further doings of Milly-Molly-Mandy,  and then because this wasn’t enough, the collections in store:  Milly-Molly-Mandy and Co, Milly-Molly-Mandy and Billy Blunt.

To get a book from store just use the catalogue to put a hold on it (or ask a librarian). Holds are free for Children and Youth borrowers.

Milly-Molly-Mandy, first published 1928, is about a girl  living in a small English village at some point in the early 20th Century (in the earlier stories, her home is lit by candlelight, whilst by the last stories she has starred as an extra in a movie).  Nothing  much actually happens with scintillating titles such as  Milly-Molly-Mandy runs an errand and Milly-Molly-Mandy wears a clean frock.  But the stories had my daughter enthralled.  Indeed they have a beautiful simplicity and offer a delightful window onto a world far removed from 2009 New Zealand. They remind me a little of the Mme Remotswe in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency stories.

Milly-Molly-Mandy’s steps in each story can be traced on the  little village map at the front of each book – which my daughter delighted in doing (author Vanessa Collingridge attributes this feature of the Milly-Molly-Mandy books to inspiring her love of maps.)

Now we have reached the end though, I am both relieved and a little saddened – we will have to find something else to read together (My Naughty Little Sister, perhaps?).  I mentioned Milly-Molly-Mandy to my own Mum back in the UK in a fortnightly phone call;  “I vaguely recall you reading them to me, did you?”.

“Oh my word, I remember,  every night – for weeeeks, you made me read them – I thought there would be no end!” she replied.