[4] The eponymous heroine lives in North Carolina in the early 1900s, encountering adventure and solving mysteries with help from her friends, family, and pet cat, Snowball.
These young reader novels are meant to teach morals as well as be fun and captivating stories to read.
The Mandie books often deal with issues of discrimination and prejudice relating to race (particularly with regard to the local Cherokee), class, and disability.
Lois Gladys Leppard based some of the incidents in her Mandie books on her mother's experiences growing up in North Carolina.
[8] The rights to produce a film based on Mandie and the Secret Tunnel are currently owned by Kalon Media.