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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
63 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hard to overstate the charm....,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Le Petit Nicolas (French Edition) (Mass Market Paperback)
It would be hard to overstate the charm of these wonderful stories. Like many others, I picked up this book to help with my project of trying to teach myself French. Not only does it serve that purpose, but it is so engaging that it has held me on course when the inherent difficulty of the language and some cross-cultural exasperation has tempted me to chuck the whole project. No way could I ever write this little dude and his copains out of my life.
Although hilarious, the Nicolas stories also touch you in a much deeper place. He is a little boy full of life and good humor, but he and his friends are also filled with every possible anxiety about growing up and finding their manly places in the world. They are charmingly obsessed with their status and their dignity. One of my favorite stories is "Louisette," which recounts the visit of a young girl who comes with her mother for tea. Nicolas is pouty from the beginning as his mother dresses him up, in his view, like a clown. And maman assures him that if he doesn't show that he is well raised, he will have an affair with her! Although Nicolas is always filled with explanations that burst forth in run-on sentences, this traumatic visit brings him close to tears more than once. In Nicolas's world, not crying is one of the main imperatives. Another is assuming a male's naturally dominant [irony] and superior role over young girls, who, after all, cry all the time. Louisette starts off telling Nicolas that he looks like a monkey and things go downhill from there. She is so much more quick-witted, not to mention athletic, that she repeatedly leaps ahead and distracts him just when he is deciding whether to give her a punch in the nose or to pull her hair. And it is Louisette who is landing all the successful coups on Nicolas. Meanwhile, Louisette is always batting her eyelashes at the mamans and impressing them with what an adorable innocent she is! As with the "Louisette" story of a young boy having to deal with a very formidable young girl who does not fit into his template defining his superior place in the world, all these stories are filled with such very real anxieties of male childhood. Let me say again, though, they are very, very funny! You love this kid. How easy/difficult is this book for a student of French. My feeling is that previous reviews have made it seem a little easier than it is. There are definitely difficult bits such as when Nicolas is playing cowboys and describes all the various cowboy accoutrements that he and his friends have hung on themselves. Often, too, sentences are very run-on, mimicking Nicolas's overflowing emotions and self-justifications. And the mannerisms of his speech are realistic and more difficult than the dry dialogue of textbooks. But this is worth a little difficulty - I just want to caution against expecting a child's book to be extremely easy. It is manageable, but not in the first few weeks of studying French. I also have a two-CD set of these stories read in French which I ordered from Amazon.fr. The CD set is a dramatic reading and it is an absolute delight. But it is considerably more difficult than the book. Those run-on sentences are read in rapid bursts, as intended. The reading wonderfully captures the charm of the book but definitely does not make it any easier. My only exasperation with the Nicolas books is that I can not share them with my English-only friends. They touched me so much and made me laugh so hard. I hope I have inspired someone here.
53 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
hilarious and easy to read,
By
This review is from: Le Petit Nicolas (French Edition) (Mass Market Paperback)
Being an intermediate french student, I was searching for easy to read french books and stumbled upon le petit nicolas. This is one of the most hilarious books I have read. The adventures of petit nicolas and his "copains" are very enjoyable. The french in this books is very easy to read something that even a beginner level french student can read. Nothing like a fun book like petit nicolas to boost your confidence in reading french.
37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very funny,
By Ryan Mack "New Yorker" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Le Petit Nicolas (French Edition) (Mass Market Paperback)
There is no better way to improve your French than by reading this book (and the entire series). Shortly after meeting my fiancee (a French speaker) I began learning French. We would read this book together...it was a wonderful experience. The story is hillarious and it is not too difficult (I read it without too much trouble after having lived in Geneva for about a month). This series is written in every day language, so you will pick up lots of phrases that you wouldn't learn in a class or in an "adult" book. If you like to laugh, I am sure you will love this book.
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