This is a screen adaptation of one of France’s most popular children’s books. Created from the imagination of René Goscinny and enlivened by drawings by Jean-Jacques Sempé, the hero is a sort of French Dennis the Menace and one of the first cases in modern children’s literature in which the world is experienced and interpreted through a child’s eyes.
In the film, Nicolas’ tranquil life changes after overhearing a conversation between his parents which convinces him that his mother is expecting. Panic-stricken, he begins to imagine the worst: the new baby will get so much attention that his parents will ignore him and abandon him in the woods like Tom Thumb. What’s to be done? Meantime he has to continue to go to school…
