French director are 90 % of the time great for movies with children, because children looks and sounds like real children, not adults in the bodies of childs. I remember seeing this one when I was a kid in the sixties. Years later, I saw it with my adult eyes and the impressions are the same : this is really a film about children! Adults, here, all looks like people from another planet. There are lots a funny gags and we also have the chance to see a forbiddon rural France, very rustic and in relation with nature. Some English director make a remake in the 1990's, but this is the original. A delight!