Práter Street and The Paul Street Boys

The novel is about schoolboys in the rapidly developing Budapest at the turn of the 20th century, who defend their playground, the "grund", from the "redshirts", a team of other boys who want to occupy it. The boys regard the "grund" as their "Fatherland", constitute themselves its "National Army" and constantly use all the terminology of nationalism as common at the time - in Hungary as elsewhere in Europe.

The "battle", fought with "sandbombs" is decided by self-sacrifice of the smallest and weakest Pal street boy, Ernő Nemecsek, whom the other boys earlier called a traitor and whose name they wrote down without capital letters. Nemecsek, already gravely ill, dies of pneumonia after the battle.

Soon after his death, the boys are chased off their beloved "grund"/"Fatherland" by engineers who inform them that an apartment building would be erected on the spot. The book ends with a mood of dejection and disillusion, with a character remarking bitterly "The Fatherland has betrayed us". The book can thus be seen as a biting satire of European nationalism and a premonition of the First World War which broke out a few years after its publication. The message gets through, even though the book is not about politics and is an easy reading for children.