Review: "Mandy" by Julie Edwards

Mandy by Julie Edwards
First published 1971
★★★★

I've been in a mood to reread some childhood favorites this year, partly so that I have a record of them later on (too easy to forget what books you read two years ago, let alone twenty or thirty years ago!). Mandy is one of those—a girl at an orphanage, with basically a decent life but desperate for the security of family, for a home of her own. (Also, if I'm honest, I always loved this because we called my grandmother Mandy.) In a lot of ways this feels very idealised (not to paint all orphanages with one brush, but...I doubt orphanages in the 60s or 70s were as cheerful, supportive, and laissez-faire as the one described here), but I think there's something terribly universal in dreaming of a place of one's own—which Mandy seeks, and finds in various ways, here. I'd forgotten how few of the other characters at the orphanage are described in any detail (it's really only one other girl Mandy's age, plus some adults), but overall the book has stood up well to the test of time.