Truffaut really was a great director of children. From his early short Les Mistons through The 400 Blows to this effort, he had a knack for drawing superbly natural performances from young actors. This is surely among his most enjoyable films, a thoroughly winning series of vignettes, mostly comic but occasionally dramatic, about school kids in a small town in central France. Scene by scene it is borderline absurd (the toddler, the cat and the window) and lovable (the little girl and the megaphone); at times it is extremely funny (the haircut gone wrong). Few films have so successfully captured the magic (and the pain) of being a kid, and accurately portrayed how children see the world. Lovely stuff.