i can't tell if i really liked this book, or if i was just so excited to read something with narrative and dialog that i overreacted. ( )

School Days (Chemin d'école) is narrated by a Martiniquan boy (perhaps a younger version of Chamoiseau?) who is the youngest of his family's four children. He sees his brothers and sister go off to school every morning, and endlessly pesters his mother to let him go, too. Naturally, the day comes when he is ready for kindergarten, and, not unexpectedly, he is terrified once he learns that he will be without his beloved mother.

He soon grows to love school, under the kindly tutelage of his first teacher, until it is time to enter first grade, with its older kids and intimidating staff. He and most of the Creole speaking children in his class struggle with the work, as their haughty and Eurocentric teacher insists that they speak only perfectly accented French. His best friend is Big Bellybutton, who falls in disfavor with the teacher because of his poor background and inability to speak properly, and is routinely bullied by the older boys during recess while the teachers turn a blind eye.

The quiet and shy, but mischevious narrator learns to respect and love books and reading from his first grade teacher. At the same time, he is enriched by the friendship of Big Bellybutton, who shares his "underground language" and joie de vivre with him.

School Days is a lighthearted and humorous tale of the life of a young child in a postcolonial Caribbean country, as he struggles to fit in with his classmates and develop his own identity. ( )

I read this for a college class and really enjoyed it. I liked the poetry, the songs, and the occasional French/Creole dialect.