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Nicholas at Large
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 14, 1985
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 14, 2008
This is one of a series of French children's books from circa 1950 that has been translated into English. (Nicholas, Nicholas and the Gang, Nicholas on Holiday, etc.) The illustrations are by Jacques Sempe, who still draws wonderful covers for the New Yorker magazine.
The stories are formulaic, in a way that my 9 year old boy finds delightful. There is always some nugget of human nature (or adult foible) exposed at the very end of the story. There are repeated bits of business, such as when the boys get into a bloody fistfight (as they frequently do), there is always the deadpan line, "We were having a fantastic time." At which point some adult breaks it up and spoils the fun.
Like good Loony Tunes, there is a story line for the adults that sometimes operates separately from the story the child understands. It's a good way to explain some subtleties of social interaction to your child. (For example, when Nicholas' parents are arguing, they use mild sarcasm with each other; this is the kind of thing some kids would take literally and so it's an opportunity to teach that people sometimes mean the opposite of what they are saying.)
My only quibble is with the translation. It's fine to translate the stories but I don't know why the French-ness had to be stripped so completely. The boys' names were changed to old-fashioned English names that have no French equivalents (Cuthbert, for example), and in some cases the stories would make much better sense if we knew the boys were French. The whole concept of the schoolmaster seems very different to me, in French and English cultures (although I may have that wrong). There are also inconsistencies. If we are going to make all the boys seem English, why does Alex ("my fat friend who is always eating") always eat croissants instead of a biscuit or bun? (I don't mind the old-fashioned political incorrectness when Nicholas refers to his friend, whom he clearly loves, as fat, and find it a good way to teach that we don't say hurtful things like that anymore, but if this is objectionable to you, you should avoid these books as it occurs in almost every story. Nicholas, as narrator, reintroduces each character in every story in which they appear, which is charming once you get used to it. It makes my boy laugh to hear the story of how "Old Spuds" got his name, over and over.)
Anyway, none of my translation cavils affects our enjoyment of the stories; it's just something I wonder about. I don't know when the stories were translated; perhaps in a time when French schoolboys would have seemed too foreign to Anglophone children.
The stories are formulaic, in a way that my 9 year old boy finds delightful. There is always some nugget of human nature (or adult foible) exposed at the very end of the story. There are repeated bits of business, such as when the boys get into a bloody fistfight (as they frequently do), there is always the deadpan line, "We were having a fantastic time." At which point some adult breaks it up and spoils the fun.
Like good Loony Tunes, there is a story line for the adults that sometimes operates separately from the story the child understands. It's a good way to explain some subtleties of social interaction to your child. (For example, when Nicholas' parents are arguing, they use mild sarcasm with each other; this is the kind of thing some kids would take literally and so it's an opportunity to teach that people sometimes mean the opposite of what they are saying.)
My only quibble is with the translation. It's fine to translate the stories but I don't know why the French-ness had to be stripped so completely. The boys' names were changed to old-fashioned English names that have no French equivalents (Cuthbert, for example), and in some cases the stories would make much better sense if we knew the boys were French. The whole concept of the schoolmaster seems very different to me, in French and English cultures (although I may have that wrong). There are also inconsistencies. If we are going to make all the boys seem English, why does Alex ("my fat friend who is always eating") always eat croissants instead of a biscuit or bun? (I don't mind the old-fashioned political incorrectness when Nicholas refers to his friend, whom he clearly loves, as fat, and find it a good way to teach that we don't say hurtful things like that anymore, but if this is objectionable to you, you should avoid these books as it occurs in almost every story. Nicholas, as narrator, reintroduces each character in every story in which they appear, which is charming once you get used to it. It makes my boy laugh to hear the story of how "Old Spuds" got his name, over and over.)
Anyway, none of my translation cavils affects our enjoyment of the stories; it's just something I wonder about. I don't know when the stories were translated; perhaps in a time when French schoolboys would have seemed too foreign to Anglophone children.
January 28, 2025
A bit dated, but still a quite endearing fun children’s book. Must have been an enjoyable challenge for the translator to make it so relatable for an English speaking audience!
May 1, 2008
an old series, recently translated into English. About a little boy in boarding school and the mischief he gets up to. Very funny. Written in short chapters.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews