Le petit Nicolas

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Le petit Nicolas (Little Nicolas) is a series of humorous French children's books written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Jean-Jacques Sempé, published between 1956 and 1964. They describe the everyday life of a little boy, Nicolas, living in the 1950s.

1 Characters
2 English edition
3 English books
4 External links

[edit] Characters

The characters from the French edition include:

Nicolas (the main character)
Clotaire (who is ranked last in the class)
Alceste (who is rather fat and eats all the time)
Eudes (who is very strong and always hits everyone)
Geoffroy (whose father is very rich)
Agnan (who is ranked first in the class and is the teacher's pet)
Joachim (who has a little brother)
Maixent (who has long legs)
Rufus (whose father is a policeman)
Marie-Edwige (the pretty daughter of Nicolas' neighbours)

Other characters include Nicolas's parents, as well as teachers and administrators in the school. The teacher is hard-working and loves the children, although they usually drive her crazy. The superintendent, Mr. Dubon, is known as "le Bouillon" ("the Broth") to the kids, because of his habit of saying, "look me in the eyes" because "in the bouillon there are eyes". Nicolas did not understand it at first as well but the older students ("les grands") explained it to him.

When Nicolas is going to a camp for vacations, he is forced with the other children to take a nap. The supervisor decides to tell them a story about "a caliph who was a very good man but who had a very evil vizier...", which is a prelude to Goscinny's future comic series Iznogoud. The supervisor then tells about how the caliph dresses as a common man to find out what people think of him, and the evil vizier takes his place, which is the plot of one Iznogoud adventure.

[edit] English edition

An English edition of the series, entitled Nicholas and containing anglicized character names, was released in 1978, translated by Anthea Bell. It was republished in 2005.

As an example, in the French version of one particular story, an English student named George MacIntosh is enrolled in Nicolas' class. Because the name "George" in French (Georges) is pronounced with a soft "g" (like "su" in "measure"), the class has difficulty coming up with a nickname, but eventually decides on "Djodjo," playing with the hard "dj" sound. In the English version, George's nationality had to be changed; he became Flemish, and his nickname went from "Djodjo" to "Djocky".

Other characters in the English edition are named Cuthbert, Alec, Eddie, Rufus, Geoffrey, and Louise. In this version, the superintendent M. Dubon (nicknamed "le Bouillon") becomes Mr. Goodman (nicknamed "Old Spuds").