Manneken Pis

Vladimir Radunsky. Manneken Pis. Atheneum, 2002

This story is about a boy who pees on a war. He lives in a town that is beautiful, with parents that adore him. But suddenly a war starts and the peaceful town turns into a sad town. The poor boy cannot find his parents and has to pee. So he pees on the war and this shocks both sides that they stop fighting and start laughing instead. The town then returns back to peaceful times. The turning point in the plot happens when the boy pees on the war.

The writing is large and often the most significant parts of the text are bold faced and even larger than the rest of text. In the epilogue the author tells us that this happened in Brussels and there is a bronze statue of the little boy peeing. I thought this was a wonderful way to talk about non violent ways of ending war to children.