ASHLAND, Ohio — Just outside of Ashland, Ohio, a grandmother and two granddaughters curl up with a good book called “The Legend of Ohio.” They’ve heard this story before because their grandma is the author. 

What You Need To Know

  • Dandi Daley Mackall has called Ohio home for over 30 years

  • Many of her books are used in Ohio schools

  • Some of her stories are true about her life

  • One of her books became a Hallmark movie

Dandi Daley Mackall actually has 502 published books with her name on them.

“I had kids, so when they were young, I wrote board books,” she says, explaining how as her kids grew, so did the genre of the books she wrote.

One of her proudest works is a novel about her parents called “With Love Wherever You Are.”

She dives into the story of how they were a nurse and doctor with countries separating them during World War II and how they used letters to keep their love alive. 

“They left me this trunk and said don’t open it until both of us are gone,” Mackall said.

Inside the trunk, she found hundreds of letters and pictures. Mackall took years to put her parents' true love story together.

Many of her books are featuring fascinating true stories from her life.

“A Girl Named Dan” is a true story about Mackall as a kid when she wrote into a batboy contest. Instead of signing her first name, Dandi, she signed it “Dan.”

“The funny thing is, I won,” she describes.  “Out of all Missouri, I won. Only they wouldn’t let me be batboy since I was a girl.”

While in undergrad, Mackall landed herself a full ride to Stanford University. But she never went, feeling  God was pulling her in a different direction overseas to a very troubled Europe.

“I was a missionary teacher of English behind the Iron Curtain,” Mackall says. “I lived on the border of Poland and Czechoslovakia and wrote this book eventually, ‘Eva Underground.’”

Some of her books have been very successful. “My Boyfriend’s Dogs” became a Hallmark Movie and “The Silence of Murder” won the Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Mystery.

For now, Mackall uses her grandkids or even just overheard conversations to come up with new story ideas. 

With screen time higher than ever for kids and even adults, she hopes her story inspires everyone to put down the phone and remote and open a story to a new world.

“We all have to be in our own head but you can read about somebody in a totally different culture coming from a different place and understand,” Mackall says.  “And I think that may be the key of what we need now, an understanding of other people.”

At 72 years old, this Ohioan with an extremely fun and lively spirit has no plans of slowing down.

She’s already working on book Nos. 503 and 504 and who knows how high that number will grow.

Mackall also knows how getting lost in a good book can help you escape stress and other negative realities of life. 

As part of her mission to increase literacy, she donates her books whenever she can. 

Even her grandkids help in packing up the books and loading them up in her car. 

On a recent trip, Mackall donated to multiple organizations including a women's shelter with kids. 

"Just how satisfying a rhyme could be in a book all the way to a mystery or a horse,” she says. “You can always find something you want in a book. All you've got to do is start and it will change your life. Reading can do that."

Many of her books are used in English classes in schools across Ohio. ​