The Toilet

The Romans had public toilets that removed human waste to the river but 1,000 years later people went back to throwing their waste into the street! The Queen of England was desperate to get rid of the smell. Her godson installed a large container of water on the castle roof with a pipe down to the toilet. The water rushed down and washed away the waste into a pit that drained into the river. Paris became a big city and soon its river was very polluted. Baron Haussmann created a modern sewage system with pipes to almost every house and tunnels under the streets that took the dirty water to a river far away from Paris.

Little Inventions by Raphaël Fejtö is a series of kid-sized books about objects that children encounter every day with little thought of how, where and when they were invented. In fact, the beginnings of these common objects are fascinating and their true stories are told here in amusing anecdotes and charming illustrations. Each book closes with a memory game, making them useful for early reader groups.

Raphael Fejto wrote his first book at school at 11 years old, and by 12 he had become a child actor. He went on to make films, including as co-star in Louis Malle's "Au revoir, les enfants" in 1987. He lives in Paris, where he has written and illustrated over 30 children's books.