The Words in Picture Books: In Praise of “Little”

Every time I make some wise declaration about the nature of words, I set myself up for a comeuppance. This is probably a good thing. It keeps me honest. It reminds me that the effectiveness of words always depends on skill and intention. Most recently, I found myself questioning the use of the word “little.” When we speak of our characters as “little children” are we patronizing them? Maybe possibly just a teeny-tiny, eentsy bit? The kids in the picture books we write don’t see themselves as little, do they? If we want to inhabit that child mind, should we not eschew the words “little” and “small?”

I guess I sort of forgot the particular words of a particular book that I particularly love.

The book is Manneken Pis: A Simple Story of a Boy Who Peed on a War by Vladimir Radunsky. It’s been on my shelf for years, this little tall tale about the oddly iconic statue in Brussels. Today, I felt driven to pick it up again, now that Russia is doing its best to pound Ukraine into the ground and we appear to be caught, deer-like in the proverbial headlights, at the sight of “fighting, everywhere, even right on the town wall.”

But what of those adjectives, “little” and “small?” Take a look: The town in the book is purposefully small and beautiful, two cliches that are turned into weighty characteristics here:

“Llittle” drops in the very next spread:

It’s all hyperbole. It’s a tale as tall as its tall stone wall. And so of course when it’s resolved by the inevitable full bladder of its protagonist, what else could he possibly be but “little?”

“Please forgive him,” says the droll storytelling voice. “He was just a little boy.”

Of course. I eat my words. Anyone who can turn cliched adjectives into such a story, one that you can tell “to your children, and they will tell it to their children, and their children will tell it to their children, and so on, and so on” earns my humble admiration.

Those who start wars (“Maybe they were jealous that the town was so beautiful.”) absolutely deserve to be peed on.