Botchan

The story is based on the author's personal experience as a teacher dispatched to Matsuyama on the island of Shikoku. Set at a middle school in Matsuyama. Botchan (young master) is the first-person narrator. He grows up in Tokyo as a reckless and rambunctious youth. In the opening he hurts himself jumping from the second floor of his elementary school, fights the boy next door, and tramples a neighbor's carrot patch by wrestling on the straw that covers the seedlings.