''Once Upon a Potty'' () is a

picture book A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. With the narrative told primarily through text, they are distinct from comics, which do so primarily through sequential images. The images ...

by Alona Frankel for pre-schoolers and their families, aimed to help with their potty learning. Its original version was published in 1975 in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

and only featured the boy Joshua (נַפְתָּלִי). The English-language version was published in 1980 along with the girl Prudence (צִיּוֹנָה). The books have been translated into multiple languages, including Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, and Hungarian. The English editions have sold more than 7 million copies in North America alone. There were also

animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...

VHS,

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

, audio CD and

audio tape An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present- ...

versions produced. The books are still in print in both hardcover and board editions, and Oceanhouse Media has produced mobile app versions on all digital platforms. The book contains a story, told from the point of view of a mother of a toddler who tries to figure out how to use a potty gifted to them by their grandmother. The story first describes that toddler's body, he or she has a head for thinking, eyes for seeing, ears for hearing, a mouth to talk and eat with,

hand A hand is a prehensile, multi-fingered appendage located at the end of the forearm or forelimb of primates such as humans, chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs. A few other vertebrates such as the koala (which has two opposable thumbs on each "h ...

s for playing, a pee-pee for making wee-wee,

leg A leg is a weight-bearing and animal locomotion, locomotive anatomical structure, usually having a columnar shape. During locomotion, legs function as "extensible struts". The combination of movements at all joints can be modeled as a single ...

s for walking and running, a bottom for sitting, and in their

buttocks The buttocks (singular: buttock) are two rounded portions of the exterior anatomy of most mammals, located on the posterior of the pelvic region. In humans, the buttocks are located between the lower back and the perineum. They are composed ...

they have a little hole for making poo-poo. The rest of the story tells about the child’s potty training process. In the original Hebrew edition, after the child uses the potty for the first time, he or she says "Bye-bye, wee-wee, bye-bye, poo-poo." This goodbye ended with the provocative phrase "see you at the beach"אריאנה מלמד
ספר: ציונה, אחות של נפתלי, עושה קקי בסיר

ynet Ynet (stylized as ynet) is one of the major Israeli news and general-content websites, and is the online outlet for the '' Yedioth Ahronot'' newspaper. However, most of Ynet's content is original work, published exclusively on the website and wri ...

that upset many environmentalists in Israel. When the mayor of Tel Aviv wrote to Frankel, offended, requesting that she remove the insult, she replied that if and after he cleans up the city beaches, she promised to remove it. At the time, there was a cholera outbreak from feces that were dumped into the sea. Years later, when the beaches were successfully cleaned, Frankel kept her word, instructing the publisher to remove those critical final words from the classic bestsellers. Regardless, the offending phrase is completely left off of other language publications of the book.

References

{{reflist Israeli books Picture books Books about toilet training 1975 children's books