Be the Best You! Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon by Patty Lovell

Molly Lou Melon was the shortest girl in her class.

Her grandma had told her, "Walk as proudly as you can and people will look up to you."

Molly's front teeth stick out so far she can stack pennies on them, but her grandma tells her to smile broadly and everyone else will smile with her.

Her voice is croaky as a bull frog's, but Grandma tells her to sing loud and clear and the world will be full of joy.

And what Grandma said was true... until Molly Lou Mellon had to say good by to her Grandma, move to a new town, and start at a new school.

Her new school had a bully--Ronald Durkin--who seemed to think it was his job to point out Molly Lou Mellon's shortcomings.

On the first day of school, Ronald Durkin called her SHRIMPO.

So Molly Lou Mellon caught a pass and ran right under Ronald Durkin's legs.  TOUCHDOWN! The kids cheered for Molly. So the next day Ronald Durkin was waiting with a new insult.

He called her "BUCKY THE BEAVER."

And Molly stacked pennies on her teeth and made all the class giggle in amazement. Ronald Durkin was appropriately abashed. But in music class the next day he sneered.

"You sound like a FROG!"

But Molly Lou Melon quacked so loud that Ronald Durkin fell over backward and had to go to the nurse's office for the rest of the afternoon. The rest of the class didn't miss him much either.

And Molly Lou Melon writes Grandma a letter.

"Dear Grandma,

Everything you told me was exactly right!"

"Be the best you that you can be," is good advice in Patty Lovell's beat-the-bully-at-his-own-game story, Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon (G.P. Putnam's Sons), comically illustrated by noted artist David Catrow in his typically quirky style, who shows that keeping your cool and your smile can go a long way. Says Publishers Weekly, "Catrow's full-bleed pencil-and-watercolor illustrations, awash in ripe colors and animated by slapstick exaggeration, radiate a winningly eccentric elegance."

For more giggle-bait, share this one with Lovell and Catrow's Have Fun, Molly Lou Melon and David Catrow's hilarious I Ain't Gonna Paint No More! (Ala Notable Children's Books. Younger Readers (Awards)) and Take Me Out of the Bathtub and Other Silly Dilly Songs.