Le petit Nicolas

I used this book while learning French. The humor is wonderfully refreshing and the language not so difficult as to leave behind a beginner in French.

Exceptional children's book. Adults and children alike fall in love. It is very funny and I can see all the situations happening in real life.

This is a phenomenal group of stories, told by a plucky school boy whose unreliability as the narrator of the stories is both humourous and infectious, colouring the whole book with an enthusiasm that either runs you over or carries you with it. The book begins with the class photo - establishing

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Nicholas and his classmates (the illustration of this photo is on the inside cover and is rich enough to delight without the text). There is Geoffrey, the rich kid, who arrived in his martian suit, Cuthbert, who is top of class and teacher's pet, Eddie, who is a very strong boy, and Alec, who is very fat and who is always eating. The boys of this all boy class, in small groups or as a class, and sometimes entirely on their own, are a whirlwind that leave adults spinning as they assess the aftermath. The boys perspective on the world around them is infectious, too, and in more than one story a grown man has found himself caught up in the boys world but without the childhood invincibility Nicholas and friends have. The stories are short and each one can be read in 10-15 minutes out loud. Nicholas has a way of being honest without meaning to be, and his run-on sentences paint a picture of crises and calamity in a way that warms the heart to the energy and spunk that crushes any attempt at discipline or order:

"Max kicked Jeremy, and Jeremy whacked Max and the teacher put them both in the corner and told me I would be Puss in Boots and if I didn't like it that was just too bad because she was getting tired of the lot of us and she felt really sorry for our parents who had the job of bringing us up and if we carried on like this we would finish up in jail and she was sorry for the guards too."

As with Goscinny's Asterix the Gaul series, if you like these stories you will probably never run out of them.

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One in a series of four books about a little boy named Nicholas, a British schoolboy who has typical school adventures with his classmates. Fun and funny British humor giving readers a sense of elementary school in England.

This was a fun read. having been written in France in the 1960's the cultural sensibilities are so different from today. The kids get into fist fight daily, are spanked, play cowboys and Indians, etc. charming in a vintage way.

This is a review of the original French version/publication.

Very sweet, funny and easy to read. I saw the film that kind of runs together some of the episodes from the various petit Nicolas books a couple of years ago and it was wonderful. This doesn't have the same overarching story that the film

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has but the separate, amusing episodes in Nicolas' life are gems.

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Very cute and charming, plus the illustrations are so cute. It was the just the break I needed right now.