I mentioned the book “Nicholas” in my last post. The kids and I have loved reading it together so I thought I would share a little more about it.
I went to this site to look at their cool colored pencil canisters and came across the Nicholas books. Of course, I had to check one out at the library first to see if it would be worth the $19.95 (or $13.57 on Amazon) price tag. I think this is a set of books that would definitely be worth having in our home library. These books, which were originally written in French, are laugh-out-loud hilarious. They have old school binding and textured hard covers, and the small illustrations throughout are simple and comical. (I say “these books” having only read the first, but I have high hopes that I will like the others as much.)
They are about a young boy, Nicholas, and his friends and their adventures (or misadventures) as they attend an all boys’ school in France. They give their teacher a hard time, although usually unintentionally. They fight a lot, and they make up a lot. They are constantly trying, and failing, to stay out of trouble.
In the book you meet:
Nicholas — of course.
Eddie — who is known for his punches.
Geoffrey — whose dad is rich and buys him anything he wants.
Cuthbert — is teachers pet and wears glasses so the other boys can’t hit him.
Alec — who is fat because he is always eating (this book is not politically correct).
…and many other fun characters.
As I was reading about the author Rene Goscinny I was surprised to see that he wrote the Asterix comics that I loved (and had forgotten about) when I was a kid.
The first chapter begins with the boys being arranged by their teacher and a photographer in preparation for their class picture. Paragraph four was the first of many that made me bust up laughing:
The photographer decided we ought to be in three rows: one row sitting on the ground, the second row standing up with our teacher sitting on a chair in the middle, and the third row standing on the wooden boxes behind them. That photographer really had some fabulous ideas.
So simple, but it makes me laugh every time I go back and reread it.
In another favorite chapter of mine they are trying to set up a soccer game with eighteen friends. Part of it reads:
“I was still fighting Geoffrey, and I’d torn his nice red, white, and blue shirt, and he was saying, “Yah, yah, yah! Doesn’t matter! My dad will buy me lots more!” and he was kicking my shins. Rufus was chasing Cuthbert, who was shouting, “I’ve got glasses! I’ve got glasses!” Jeremy wasn’t doing anything to anyone, he was looking for his coin, but he still couldn’t find it. Eddie, who’d been waiting patiently in his own goal, got fed up and started punching the noses closest to him, which happened to belong to his own side. We were all shouting and running around and we were having a really fabulous time!”
I can’t wait to read the second book with my kids!
Whims 