The story starts by introducing a small, beautiful town surrounded by a wall, and a little boy and his family living happily. Suddenly a war breaks out and the little boy loses track of his parents among the fighting. While looking for his parents out in the midst of a war the little boy hears "nature calling" and urinates where he stands among the wall built around the city. He urinates all over the fighting people who begin to laugh so hard that they stop fighting and laugh until they fall asleep. When everyone wakes up the war is over and the little boy finds his parents and is happy once again.
I'll start with what I liked about this book; The text was in an easy to read font that enlarged when it stated something important was happening, I think this is a good way for new readers to distinguish the importance of events in a story. I also liked the illustrations, they were straight forward and described what was happening very well. I also liked that the illustrations and the text were kind of child like, and the story was told through the perspective of a child.
This book appealed to me because I thought it was a good way to introduce some culture into a child's life and showed them that even the smallest people can make a big difference.
Overall however, I really didn't like this story...and I don't want to sound ignorant because it is a real legend that is obviously very important to the people of Brussels, because they erected a statue of this little boy somewhere in the city. I honestly didn't really think it was appropriate for children K-2 because it was just kind of....gross. Maybe for older kids who wouldn't giggle the whole time at the idea of this kid peeing everywhere and the image of his penis in the book...it would be a good read.
I actually don't think that this book would be allowed in most classrooms because of story which is a little disappointing because it is an important legend to another culture, but there are other more "appropriate" stories from other cultures that we can introduce to our students.
Again, I don't want to sound ignorant because this legend is probably in no way inappropriate or weird to the people of Brussels, but as we have been learning in class, people who come from different backgrounds have different tastes and opinions. I really did try to read this with an open mind but I really just did not enjoy it. I guess I have some work to do on my critical reading.
My only real connection with this book is that I chose it because I enjoy reading stories about other cultures, but I honestly just think that there are better books out there about other cultures that I would enjoy reading more.
