Mam Ninotte's House

Mam Ninotte's house is where the little boy and his siblings live with their mother and father. It appears to be part of an apartment building with a communal corridor. This corridor is where the little boy scribbles with his first pieces of chalk, before he goes off to nursery school. The house itself is never described, but it is clearly not the one-room shack that Big Bellybutton describes as his own home. It is also nothing like the archetypal house-image that European children draw, which the little boy begins to draw when he comes home from nursery. Unlike his drawings, his real house does not have a smoking chimney or oak, fir and apple trees growing outside.

Nursery School (Mam Salinière's House)

The little boy goes to nursery at Mam Salinière's house. Mam Salinière is the nursery teacher. The room where...