The Horn Book Guide

PICTURE BOOKS

Radunsky, Vladimir

Manneken Pis: A Simple Story of a Boy Who Peed on a War

32 pp. | Atheneum/Schwartz | September, 2002 | Trade ISBN 0-689-83193-5 $$15.95

(2) K-3 Radunsky constructs an allegory around Brussels's Manneken Pis, the bronze statue of a little boy merrily piddling a fountain. In this version, the town is being consumed by war. The boy pees off the top of a building onto the combatants below; they all begin "laughing, laughing, laughing" and put down their arms. The battle scenes in the boldly theatrical paintings are only mock-ferocious, the "enemies" depicted with cute little green faces.

Reviewer: Roger Sutton | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2002