Once upon my son’s potty

September 23, 2008 - 12:22 PM by

It’s potty-training time at my house, which means two things. Firstly, the occasional accidents around the house and garden – which my older two children unfortunately find highly amusing, making potty-training a little more challenging than usual – and secondly, the dusting off of Alona Frankel’s book, Once Upon a Potty.

ben potty3.jpg

Once Upon a Potty is the bible of toilet-training. Though I’ve looked, I haven’t yet found a book that explains the process to a child in a better way. The drawings are old fashioned, the language occasionally stilted, but boy does Frankel get the message across clearly, and with humor.

I’m obviously not the only mother to think so. Since Frankel, an Israeli who lives in Tel Aviv, first translated the book into English in 1980, (it came out in Hebrew in 1975), the book sold four million copies in the US alone. The boy’s version was listed as No. 1 in Publisher Weekly’s all-time best-selling hardcover childcare charts, while the girl’s version came in at number three.

Even today, any article on toilet training is likely to end with a recommendation to buy the book. No-one, it seems, has come up with anything that betters it.

Frankel is an interesting woman. She was born in Krakow, Poland in 1937, and spent World War II in hiding, first alone and then later with her parents. She moved to Israel with her family in 1949. Like so many writers, Frankel wrote the book when her son Michael was a baby to help him through a trying period. It was her first book, and after it’s publishing success, she went on to write and illustrate 35 other titles, winning many awards though the years.

In April this year, a new multimedia exhibition was launched at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, telling the stories of 90 survivors of the Holocaust who have made impressive contributions in the fields of art, literature, science etc. Frankel is one of those featured.

In an article in the Herald Tribune at the time, Yehudit Shendar, the exhibit’s curator and deputy director of Yad Vashem’s Museums Division, praised Frankel and the other featured survivors for their ability to “become part of society with a vivaciousness which is totally surprising.”

So what is it about Once Upon a Potty that remains so enduring?

It’s that wonderful down to earth Israeli quality to call a spade a spade, or in this case – as my son will vouch – a poo, a poo.

Tags: , , , , , , • Category: Art, General, Life, Pop Culture, Profiles 

Comments

5 Comments on Once upon my son’s potty

  1. karin on Tue, Sep 23rd 2008 3:30 PM

    2. I met Alona Frankel and sat with her in her living room in Tel Aviv near the Habima Theatre interviewing her for a story in the Jerusalem Post. She has a sensuous personality and such a special zest for life. She signed a copy of her potty book for me, which I have stored away in my bookshelf for one day when I have kids (B”S) and the need for potty training lit. Not wanting to part with it, I just bought a girlfriend of mine a copy for her daughter. It’s an essential for any parent. Also Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak.

    - Karin

  2. Rattling the Kettle on Tue, Sep 23rd 2008 3:58 PM

    3. Is it a milk bowl for the cat?

    My son will occasionally ask me that, out of the blue.

  3. Nicky on Tue, Sep 23rd 2008 5:31 PM

    4. My son always laughs when we get to the bit about the milk bowl, and the vase. He shakes his finger in the air and says “No-o.”

    Karin – I also love Where the Wild Things are, and check out I Love You Blue Kangaroo, and Harry and the Robots – there’s some great books for children out there…
    And don’t get me on the older books. I bought the Dark Materials series for my 10-year-old, and read them all at one go. And then there’s Eva Ibotsen, The secret of Platform 13 – better by far than the Harry Potter books…

  4. Rachel on Tue, Sep 23rd 2008 8:49 PM

    5. I actually stole my copy from children! Yes, my charges at the kibbutz children’s house. Granted, they were all pretty much toilet trained when I got there, and since they are now all 33 years old, they probably know their way around a bathroom. I hope. Still, I feel much better having ‘fessed up.

  5. Larry W in Los Angeles on Tue, Sep 23rd 2008 10:21 PM

    6. Nice posting

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