Text-To- World Connection

Personally, I enjoyed reading '' Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon''. I have seen this book several times and have yet to read it. Molly is a very inspiring student. Molly choice to listen to the voice of her grandmother that is filled with kindness instead of the negativity of her peers. Molly has differences just as we all do but instead of allowing the world to sway her individuality, she chooses to embrace it.
As a community and even worldwide we should that this same advice. Choose to listen, embrace and love yourself. Teaching our students at a young age to love themselves and others is vital. Embrace the energy of Molly Lou Melon!

Summary: In "Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon", it is about a young girl who is quite small with special talents and attributes that makes her different than others. In the beginning, her grandmother tells her she should embrace these unique attributes that make her special. But, when she must move to a new school, not everyone thinks that these unique qualities that make Molly Lou Melon special should be embraced. At her new school, Molly Lou Melon must come face to face with the school bully, Ronald Durkin, and remain steadfast to her grandmothers advice to embrace what makes her special and the best person she can be.

Theme: This book is about embracing your individuality, following your elders advice, and how to overcome bullying.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Personal Response: I loved this book because of how teachers can use it as a tool in their classroom as to teach the theme of listening to an elder's wise advice and bullying. The original and colorful illustrations in this book truly draw the reader in. I think this is a great book for young readers to enjoy and to learn important life lessons without the book explicitly saying the important message of inclusivity. I think the words and content flow perfectly and are supported with the amazing pictures.

Why I recommend: I would highly recommend this book because I believe that it has an important message that we should be kind to others and strive to be the best person that we can be. At a young age, children need to be reminded that they should value their own and others gifts. The book explains that we can become our best selves just by embracing and sharing our talents and special qualities. In many classrooms today, bullying is unfortunately present and I think teachers can use this book to address this topic in a kid friendly way.

Molly Lou Melon is a short girl, who gets bullied at school. Throughout the story Molly Lou Melon proves her bully wrong and keeps her head up, or as her grandma says "Stand Tall." I recommend this story to everyone because it focuses on differences and learning how to embrace uniqueness. For this story, I would read aloud this story, then have my students come up with ways they are unique. As a class we would go around the room and allow each students explain why he or she is unique.

Molly Lou Melon looks different than most kids, shes short, has buck teeth, a funny voice, and is the new kid in school. Everyone knows it's not easy to be the new kid, but to be the new kid and look and sound funny is even worse. Molly Lou has to use her grandmother's advice to stand tall and push through all the bullying at her new school.

This is a very cute story I have seen read in many classrooms. The children love it. It is funny but it also has such a meaningful story and lesson about not bullying other kids.

"Stick and Stone" by Beth Ferry is a book with a similar anti-bullying message.

This book can be used to teach children about how bullying and exclusion can be very hurtful to other people.

Funny, adorable, and empowering. Molly Lou Melon isn’t having any of your insults. She is strong and confident in a itsy-bitsy package. The kids and I liked this one a lot.

Summary: This book was about a little girl that got a life lesson from her grandma. No matter what a bully may say you should always stand tall. In other terms, the moral of the story is to always be the bigger person.

Evaluation: I think the message of this book is one that all students should hear. The book does a great job of showing how children can build their self-esteem. I loved the illustrations and the overall tone of the book. It was very humorous. I think it would be a great read-aloud for kindergartners to 2nd.

Teaching: This book is perfect to teach your students about positive self-image and how to deal with bullying. Through a read-aloud discussion, I would address the topic of "what to do when someone is bullying you?" Another topic I would discuss is "how Molly Lou Melon had high self-esteem." I would have my students complete an activity about building their self-esteem by having them write down three things they love about themselves.

Despite her small stature, buck-toothed smile, croaky voice (like that of a bull-frog), and tendency toward clumsiness, Molly Lou Melon was a happy, well-adjusted, self-confident little girl. After all, her Grandma has always instructed her to walk proudly, smile big, sing out clear and strong, and believe in herself. But when she moved to a new town, leaving her old school and friends behind, she found that her idiosyncrasies had made her a target for the school bully, Ronald Durkin. Fortunately, Molly Lou had a few tricks up her sleeve, and wasn't about to allow anyone to make her a victim...

A book that seems to have won almost universal accolades from other reviewers (so many five and four-star ratings!), Molly Lou Melon was a story that I liked more in theory, and for what the author was obviously trying to accomplish, than in reality. I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that self-confidence is an important value to instill in children, and that standing up to bullies is something that should be encouraged, but something about the way this story was formulated just didn't sit well with me, the first time I read through it. Thinking about it now, and having read it again, I realize that the issue here is the implication, however unintentional, that children can solve the problem of bullying by having a "good" attitude. It's that old chestnut, "ignore it and it will go away," but in slightly different form: "be positive and proactive, and it will change."

I think that this idea - that our attitude can effect the outcome of events, and convince others to change their behavior - is certainly true in some cases. And I can see some children finding Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon very empowering. But for others, for the victims of chronic bullying and teasing (or of other kinds of abuse), this story simply doesn't ring true. I know, because I was one such child, and I can still vividly recall the experience of being ridiculed every single day at school, of being called various ugly names at least twenty times before I could go home, simply because I was too muscular "for a girl." (Apparently, girls shouldn't have more muscles than boys, even in early years when they are on different developmental tracks, and boy was I made to pay for not having the "right" body-type!) Nothing I did - ignoring the situation, answering back - in any way helped, and I simply wasn't equipped, personality-wise, to be be able to "win" peers over to my side. I've never been the passive type, so I always stood up for myself, and, being terribly proud, I made sure that all my crying was done in private. But in the end, it didn't help. Nothing did.

What's funny is that one of my teachers, who saw some of this unfold, commented, a few years afterword, that it had seemed to him that I handled myself very well (meaning that I had always stood up for myself). I think he was trying to compliment me on my "positive attitude," although perhaps he was just offering what comfort he could (hey, at least you didn't just accept it, right?), after the fact. In any case, I remember thinking at the time that addressing oneself to the victim's attitude is a terribly inadequate means of dealing with bullying. There's something almost cruel about stories like this, I think, in which a real and pressing problem is so easily dealt with. Not only will the child who is enduring this kind of treatment not find a real strategy for dealing with it, but they will also gain the impression (again, however unintentionally given) that if they were somehow different - if they had a better attitude, or a more positive self-image - they could stop this from happening.

Useful, perhaps, as a means of promoting good self-image, or as a story about light teasing, Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon is utterly inadequate, in my view, when it comes to the issue of serious bullying.

As a petite, shy little girl, I can definitely relate to Molly Lou Melon.

Simple charming from start to finish.

PS - I still don’t like that Ronald Durkin!!

Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon (Molly Lou Melon) by Patty Lowell, Illustrator David Catrow, Hindi language translation by Arvind Gupta- Children’s Illustrated Colour Picture Book- the book narrates the story of Molly Lou Melon, a child who is short in height, has teeth protruding out of her mouth, when she moves, she things fall by her touch. Her grandmother teaches her to remain confident and active. Wise words from Grandma encourage Molly to stand up for herself, be true to herself, smile and be happy, and never give up.Molly moves to a new city and is admitted to a new school. Ronald Durkin, a bully in the class teases her. But with her confidence, she beats his football team by scoring a goal. She places coins on her teeth and laughs. All laugh with her. With her confidence she wins hearts of her classmates. Coloured illustrations help the reader in relating to the story. I have read the Hindi language translation of this book.

Read this again and loved the message even more. Grandparents are important with their life lessons. Primary set lessons for life

Stand Tall, Molly Lou Mellon is a story about a little girl who is very different than everyone else that is in her first grade class. He grandmother teaches her to embrace her differences and it makes her proud of the way she is. Molly has to move schools and she is going away from her grandmother and all of her friends. When she gets to her new school a bully starts to pick on her every day. Every day that the bully picks on her, she does something to prove that she is very proud of being the different person she is which results in everyone liking her in the end, even the bully.
I really really liked reading this book. I thought it was cool how no matter how much she got bullied she kept on doing things to prove her bully wrong. I also enjoyed the illustrations in this book. I would have this book in my classroom to read aloud to the students for story time because I feel like a lot of students may relate to Molly Lou Melon and it may help them.

This was a beautiful written book about a not so average girl with above average propensity for trouble. Molly Lou Melon is a tiny girl with a big heart that made everyone in the story smile even the bully turned bestfriend with words of wisdom from her grandmother.
-K-3 would be ideal for this sort of book.
-Story time would be the best opportunity tell the story.
-A kid that feels left out would surely be the type of kid that would benefit from this book.
-This book has a good message that is easily shared in small groups.
-This book should be read to the whole class
-A Related book is "Not Your Typical Dragon"
-I do not know of any multimedia available for this book.