Small Nicolas

small Nicolas is a character of the Littérature of Jeunesse.

One initially meets it in a series of humorous illustrated novels whose Rene Goscinny wrote the texts and Jean-Jacques Sempé the drawings, published between 1956 and 1964, in the Belgian newspaper the Mosquito , then starting from 1959 in Southern West Sunday and Pilote . The series puts in scene a little boy, Nicolas, in an urban environment during the Années 1950, with a spirit a little schoolkid and much of a true-false frankness.

The character, who is only profiled in Noir and white, delivers his thoughts to us intimate as regards as a whole a sociological analysis complexes company of his time.

Characters

  • Nicolas: the main character of the series, it is a turbulent and a little rebellious boy, who shows sometimes of hysteria and often immaturity. One rather easily recognizes it on the drawings of group because he is the only boy with black hair.

  • Alceste : it is very large because it eats all the time. It is the best friend of Nicolas. The drawings almost always represent it putting something in its mouth. Its food makes also its hands dirty what is sometimes an embarrassment for his/her buddies. His/her parents are as greedy as him. He does not like to share his food with his buddies what creates arguments sometimes.
  • Clotaire : the last of the class of Nicolas, it is very awkward but is regarded as very a good friend. He is only characters to have a Télévision at his place. When the mistress questions it, it almost inevitably finishes with the corner because it does not learn anything, which possibly leads it to go directly to the corner to save time.
  • Eudes : it is very strong and often inclined to use violence to make accept its ideas with the others (“it likes, Eudes, to give punch on the nose”). Eudes has a big brother which makes his Military service (soldier of 1st class affected to the kitchens) and a father which failed to be in business connection with the father of Nicolas but who refused “to sign with a dead loss”. One can recognize it on the drawings of group because it wears sometimes a wind-breaker.
  • Geoffroy: his/her father is very rich (money gained thanks to its talents in the real estate speculation) and it buys many things to his/her son (“gains heaps and heaps of money”). This last likes to come to the school disguised. Geoffroy is rather proud of his luxury, and by praise itself, it was made a reputation of liar in his comrades who since seldom believe his stories. When the moms are requested from the school, the mother of Geoffroy never comes: it is Albert, the driver of his father, who devotes himself.
  • Joachim : one does not know large thing of him, if it is not that it has a little brother, Leonce, whose birth was the object of an episode and which it is " terrible with the billes".
  • Agnan : very serious and always ready to inform itself, it is the first of the class and the pet of the mistress with whom it often makes denouncement, which is worth to him to be hated by the majority of his/her comrades who treat it cockroach. N the other hand, it shows sometimes joy when a comrade is made punish. he is asked in general reserve when the class laughs at Clotaire which has an arm in the plaster and which became the pet (Agnan did not know the rule of the stake). Fortunately it is made give to its place with its mom, when one replacing arrives and when Rufus draws it naked with the dispensary and writing: Agnan is a pet! It is in the class to only carry glasses (although Clotaire carried from there during an episode) what dissuades the others to type to him above. Agnan cries very easily when it is opposed or embarrassed.
  • Maixent : it has very long legs with dirty knees and thus runs very quickly, and it is likely. It apparently has also parents very skinflints.
  • Rufus : he is the son of a police officer, and inherited him a whistle. Rufus takes very with serious the trade of his/her father.
  • Marie-Edwige: the pretty small neighbor of Nicolas, and girl of Courteplaque. Blonde and very female, it is very friendly with Nicolas and even made turn the head to some of her comrades (like Alceste). She has a Poupée which is called Chantal. Nicolas as put himself in the head as he would marry it later (idea that he had already been done with certain Louisette).
  • the mother of Nicolas: mother with the hearth, it is often to shout against Nicolas who does not facilitate the life to him, or even against her husband who is not always understanding towards it.
  • the father of Nicolas: it works in an office for its owner Mr. Moucheboume, and it often complains about the difficulties of its work. When it returns to the house, it likes to slacken on its armchair with reading a newspaper and smoking a Pipe. It is generally more jovial and lenient towards his son whom his wife it is not. In fact, in an episode, one sees that in his office one does not work much. In the first drawings, it was more corpulent than its final aspect.
  • the mistress: it informs the class of Nicolas who causes him many problems. When she wants to thunder a pupil, she puts herself to address as vous it. Although it is severe, Nicolas generally finds it " chouette".
  • the principal: frequently appears when the class becomes too intolerable, it always enters according to the ritual formula: " Debout" , known as the mistress. " Assis" , known as Mister Directeur.
  • Mr. Dubon alias the Bubble: a supervisor at the school which is very severe. It is secretly called " The Bubble " not because it often bubbles of anger, but because it often says to the pupils " Look at me in the yeux" and in the bubble, there are eyes (the fat supernatant). Dubon seems to be originating in Ardèche and was a staff sergeant in the Coloniale where it ordered a unit of Senegalese Tirailleurs.
  • Mr. Mouchabière: another supervisor of the school, younger than the Bubble but not less severe. The pupils did not find a nickname yet to him.
  • Louisette : the girl of a friend of the mother of small Nicolas.

The other characters are the neighbors (Misters Courteplaque and Blédurt), the maternal grandmother of Nicolas and uncle Eugene (the brother of Dad, VRP of profession). One also sees appearing the sisters of Mom, of which frightening aunt Mathilde with the proverbial off-handedness.

Albums

Anecdotes

  • In the Holidays of small Nicolas , a monitor of the camp tells a history with the children: " There was once, in a very remote country, a caliph who was very good, but which had a very malicious vizier. " . Goscinny was inspired later by this to create Iznogoud. Moreover, Nicolas says that the continuation of the history speaks about the caliph who disguises himself to see what people think of him, which is the intrigue of an episode of Iznogoud .

  • It recently left Small Nicolas, Ségolène and the buddies . It is a pastiche of the series (by " Gospé" and " Sempinny" , imitating its drawing and its narrative style, which places the current eminent French politicians as classmates (with Nicolas Sarkozy like homonym of Small Nicolas, and Ségolène Royal at its sides).
  • October 2007: a second pastiche signed Gospé and Sempinny has just appeared, " Small Nicolas in Elysée" , with some new pupils in the class.
  • November 2007: at the time of the thirtieth birthday of the disappearance of Goscinny, the Lire magazine proposes out of the ordinary which comprises an article on the small schoolboy, but also a new of Small Nicolas, " The news épicerie" (no information in the magazine as for the origin of its discovery, can be other news will appear in the future).

External bonds

  • Official site of Small Nicolas

  • Blog of the buddies of Small Nicolas
  • Official site devoted to the work of Rene Goscinny
  • Site on the adventures of Small Nicolas
  • a university report
  • Small Nicolas but in Larger, a blog of accounts derived from Small Nicolas

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