Mary Louise Loses Her Manners

Rating:
Summary: Mary Louise as an Excuse
Review: After reading this delightful book to my 3 year old granddaughter, the next evening we went to a restaurant for dinner. Annie behaved abominably. Correcting her repeatedly, I finaly said in desparation, " Annie, what is the matter with you?" She replied, "Gramma, I think I lost my manners." She loves the book and that is the best review.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book to Read to your Class
Review: The main idea of this book is to teach the reader that it is impolite to forget your manners.

If you are a teacher, this is definitely a book you will want to read to your class. It can be used to teach vocabulary in context and teach your students what it means to have manners, follow rules, and why it is impolite to forget your manners. The illustrations are hilarious and will definitely keep their attention and have them laughing to no end.

Rating:
Summary: A Fun and Entertaining Book Never Loses Your Attention
Review: This book is fun to read - full of silly sayings and crazy running about as Mary Louise loses her manners and goes off on a search to find them again. Your only danger in reading this book is that your child may think the things Mary Louise says after losing her manners are so funny, that they might want to repeat the words themselves. The illustrations are great. I didn't care for one part in the restaurant where she ties the bibs on people a little too tight. That seems less like bad manners and more like just meanness. The book will inspire some conversation between adults and children about manners - something every child needs to learn.

Rating:
Summary: Mary Louise as an Excuse
Review: This book, instead of the preachy, sweet moral lesson so many books on good manners are, is a very funny romp through town as Mary Louise sets off in search of her manners. Great fun -- kids will find it very funny.

Rating:
Summary: Educators Recommend
Review: While eating breakfast, Mary Louise realizes she has lost her manners. She begins to look for them. "She turned her pockets inside out. She shook her hair. She looked up her nose. Between her toes. Inside her shoes." No manners. So off she goes to look for them---with wagon in tow.

Thankfully, Mary Louise meets Mrs. Abby, an artist, who makes a sketch of her missing manners to help in the hunt. And what does Mary Louise's manners look like? They have "big ears for listening," says Mary Louise, "[a]nd a little mouth to keep naughty words from slipping out. The arms? Short, says Mary Louise, "for not reaching across the table."

With sketch in hand, Mary Louise visits a restaurant where the waitress recognizes the manners in the picture. But, alas, they were here---"and helped put bibs on the babies and forks on the tables"---and were gone. Mary Louise continues on her way, visiting the doctor's office, the hot-dog vendor, a street musician, the bus stop. Apparently, Mary Louise's manners had "been running around town exercising themselves."

And where does she finally find her manners? Asleep in the library, kindly covered with newspapers (because they were snoring). "Nobody's perfect, not even manners," says the librarian. Into the wagon they go. Then, happy and humming, Mary Louise heads back home with a promise never to let her manners run away again.

While reading this wonderfully wry book I found myself, along with my eighth graders to whom I was reading it, laughing out loud at Mary Louise's antics. The illustrations are deliciously funny and are a perfect match with the text.

This book would be fitting for a lesson or unit on manners for the young ones, or simply as a good old-fashioned read-aloud. Although the recommended age levels are 4-8, don't discount it for use in the middle school. On several occasions I found one of my teenaged reluctant readers in the reading corner with the book, giggling.