'why don't you try it too?' he seemed to say.

This book was hilarious! I read it at the public library and found myself feeling like a creep for laughing out loud in the children's section while kids read with their parents all around me. Especially for what I was laughing at. Standing up by Marie-Anne Gillet isn't a potty training book per se, but more about the tweaking of said potty skills. But I don't think this book is controversial for the plot line (although I guess I could see how some people might not understand the need to write such a book) so much as for the illustrations by Isabelle Gilboux. The story is based on the famous Manneken Pis statue in Brussels. A boy is perfectly content sitting on his training potty until he sees this famous peeing statue. It seems to call to him and from that point on he will not rest until he's figured out how to pee standing up. I'm serious. And this is probably where it gets hairy. On his first try, we see the boy standing, holding himself, with pee gushing out of his cup hands onto his pants and the floor. Pretty much every picture after that is of the boy holding himself with a stream of pee trickling, spraying, or streaming from his nether regions. The main problem with these illustrastions is probably the fact that even though the boy is holding himself, we still get a few pretty clear glimpses of "himself". Another problem perhaps is that most of the boy's urination takes place in public, which is not illegal in much of Europe. At one point, he pees off the balcony of his home onto a woman who is, very luckily, holding an umbrella. He pees on a snail, on his mother while she's taking a bath (I should mention that all of his mis-aims were accidental), and even with his father when he finally gets the hang of it. But don't worry, all we see of the father is his butt in blue jeans. But they're both very clearly peeing on the side of some building. So I guess I can see how some might find the book a little inappropriate but to those people I say: lighten up. You might even laugh. I know I did.
And if you want to laugh a little more (or find others championing your cause) try MAPSU...I think they might be for real.