This selection of novels in the Mandie series follows the heroine chronologically. As Mandie and the Holiday Surprise opens, Mandie is back at school in Asheville, eager to return home for the Christmas holidays. Mandie’s nemesis, April Snow, attempts to get Mandie in trouble by letting Mandie’s cat, Snowball, out of her room. But Mandie and Snowball are both soon free to leave for home. The mountains are beautiful at Christmas and there is a mystery (stolen presents and strange footprints in the snow), but there are bigger developments. Mandie’s mother is pregnant. Mandie does not take this news well, but soon she is distracted by an important invitation. President McKinley has heard of Mandie’s work on the hospital and has invited her to the forthcoming inauguration for his second term.
In the other novels in this volume, Mandie and the Washington Nightmare, Mandie and the Shipboard Mystery, and Mandie and the Foreign Spies, Mandie is in new places–Washington, DC, on an ocean-liner bound for Europe, and in London. But first she has to return from school and accept that she will no longer be her mother’s only child (Mandie and the Midnight Journey).
Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.
