Image credit: http://www.iconovox.com/blog/2009/03/06/le-petit-nicolas-de-sempe-et-goscinny-exposition-hotel-de-ville-de-paris/
They are a series of French classic children’s stories. Basically, all of the kids here know them and love them and read them all the time.
I got acquainted with them before I got to France, when we read them in my high school French classes. We would put on class skits based on the stories, or carefully note the distinction between l’imparfait and le passé composé verb tenses. They are really cute. Each tale tells the misadventure of a little boy, Nicolas, along with his gang of buddies at school. Each character has his own personality. There is Agnan, the chouchou (teacher’s pet) and Alceste, who unfailingly has some food in hand to eat, and Eudes, who always wants to get in a fight. All of them are loveable. And they always manage to get into trouble before getting out of it.
When I heard they were making a movie based on the books, I got super excited. But as is always the case with film adaptations, I worried that the authenticity would be compromised and that the charm of the books wouldn’t be translated to the big screen, etc, etc.
Thankfully all these worries amounted to nothing, when I finally got to see it in the movie theatre one weekend with the girls. The set-up of the film is clever, as the essential outline of the film is based on Nicolas’s fear that his maman is pregnant and that he is therefore going to have a little brother soon. But other anecdotes from the stories are weaved into the plot. The total effect is super funny, cute, and heart-warming.
Here’s the link to the movie trailer (in French, no English version to be found):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5mquUT7jCI
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