The Milly-Molly-Mandy are lovely read alouds for younger children!
Very British, these stories are part of my childhood.
From Wikipedia (ignore "particularly for little girls" - my little boys LOVE them too!):
Milly-Molly-Mandy refers to a series of children's books written and illustrated by Joyce Lankester Brisley,
as well as to the main character of those books. Each book has a number
of short stories about the little girl in the pink-and-white striped
dress.[1]
The length of each chapter is well matched to the needs of a bedtime
story, particularly for little girls aged roughly five to eight. The
illustrations show Milly-Molly-Mandy growing from about age four through
to age eight, as can be seen by her physical development.
Milly-Molly-Mandy's real name is Millicent Margaret Amanda, but she
received the nickname because her full name was considered too long. Her
adventures are the everyday events of village life, running errands,
going to school, making presents, fishing, picnicking, and so on. She
lives in "the nice white cottage with the thatched roof" on the edge of a
small village. Her parents, grandparents, aunt and uncle also live in
the cottage. Her friends are Billy Blunt and Little-Friend-Susan. The
stories take place in England, and because of the proximity to the sea
and downs, and the chalk roads in the village, they would appear to take
place near to the south coast. When they take a trip to the seaside by
train the illustration has white cliffs which would suggest Kent or
Sussex, and is visually rather akin to Eastbourne. The author was born
in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, which is the next town east of
Eastbourne. Both Bexhill and Eastbourne have railway stations (as
featured in the story), so candidates for Milly-Molly-Mandy's location
are Polegate, Berwick or Glynde. The year is the late 1920s, given the
state of inventions; cars are just spreading into general use but there
are no telephones, household electricity or aeroplanes as a rule.
These simple tales were originally published in the Christian Science Monitor. While acknowledging that the stories have been sometimes represented as twee and sentimental, Lucy Mangan, writing in The Guardian,
describes them as delightful and comforting: "each story is a miniature
masterpiece, as clear, warm and precise as the illustrations by the
author that accompanied them".[2]
In the front of each book is the following map:
I loved this map as a child, and still love it now! The children flip back to the front of the book if we are reading a story with something or someone new in it, so they can place it in the story.
Lovely stuff!
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