Written and illustrated by German painter and poet, Wilhelm Busch, Max und Moritz (1865) is a children's story written in doggerel verse and illustrated in a comic-like style about two unscrupulous boys who taunt adults with their sadistic pranks.

In this illustration, Max and Morris have already tricked the widow into cooking chickens they are now trying to snag by lowering a fishing rod down the chimney. Hearing the commotion, her barking dog summons the widow from below. The story ends when the widow beats the dog she assumes has eaten the chickens that have vanished from her stove. At the end of the book, the boys get their comeuppance: they are ground into grain and devoured by ducks.

The gruesome ending is in keeping with the strict Prussian-era pedagogy that emphasized ethics, duty, discipline, and obedience. It also influenced Heinrich Hoffmann (1809-1894) in whose Der Struwwelpeter (1845) children were violently punished for their bad behavior. Both works also used "Knittelvers," rhymed couplets of irregular versification (eight or nine syllables often with four stresses per line). Knittelvers came into German literature most strongly in comedies of the 16th century. The comedic heritage and sing-song quality of Knittelvers made the rhyme scheme most appropriate for children's literature that was both humorous and didactic.

How do these mischievous boys compare with other pranksters elsewhere in the world? Why are they often young males? What have mischief-makers and their pranks meant to children? What purposes have they served to adults and society?

Aztec children were valued creations. Language used in rituals compared infants to precious stones and feathers, flakes of stone, ornaments, or sprouts of plants. The duty of parents and society, however was not to indulge but to socialize the child, so that they would not become "fruitless trees," as an Aztec proverb stated. According to sources written shortly after the Spanish conquest, such as the Codex Mendoza, society placed a high value on conformity, obedience, and decorum. The section of the Codex Mendoza that depicts daily life shows gender-specific punishments used in raising children. The image seems to show a sequence of punishments, first threatening the boy and the girl with three maguey thorns, the spike of the agave plant. In the second image, the woman is administering punishment to the girl by piercing her arm with the maguey thorn; the boy is pierced more severely in the neck, flank, and hip, and he is bound at the wrists and ankles. In the third image, the punishment of striking the child with a stick or rod is being carried out. In each case the image shows the children weeping profusely as the threat or the punishment is administered.

Annotation written by Susan Douglass.