<< January 17, 2005 >>
Le Petit Nicolas est de retour!
I'm not exactly sure how I missed this last year -- living in Paris, and all that -- but while on vacation I was fortunate enough to pick up and read an article in the Economist about the recent released Histoires inédites du Petit Nicolas.
It turns out that René Goscinny's daughter, Anne, discovered a collection of 80 previously unpublished Petit Nicolas stories in her attic a few years back -- nearly 600 pages -- and with the consent of her father's partner, Jean-Jaques Sempé, has published the archive.
For those of you unfamiliar with Le Petit Nicholas, it's a collection of children stories published in the early 60's that was the result of a collaboration between famed Asterix creator (and probably France's most famous and important BD creator) René Goscinny and illustrator Jean Jacques Sempé. Consisting of 5 books that chronicle the life of Nicolas and his school chums, the tales are hopelessly innocent, perfect and funny. I'm especially drawn to the school-boy slang used by the characters, and to Sempé's illustration style, both of which make the stories genuine and sincere. I don't know how well it translates in English, but they are a great way to have some fun while learning French.
More about Le Petit Nicolas at:
Official (and fantastic!) site of Histoires inédites du Petit Nicolas
Posted by dmd on January 17, 2005 12:01 PM