LAUSR

Abstract What mirror does children's literature, a privileged space of observation for educational institutions, offer to schools after the terrorist attacks? Through a heterogeneous corpus of texts, a young adult romance – (Paris est tout petit by Maïté Bernard) a five-seasons series (Sauveur et fils by Marie-Aude Murail), a dystopian face-off (Quelques minutes de silence by Philippe Gauthier) and a comic strip that was not aimed at kids but was popular among them (Les Cahiers d'Estherby Riad Sattouf) – the objective is to see how authors immerse their young readers in the daily life of schools in the days following the terrorist attacks. Minutes of silence, security measures and educational approaches to these traumatic and high-profile events are indeed turned into fiction by authors who are anxious to make common cause with the school system and its republican discourse, without standing in for them. The experience of terrorism and the threat it represents appear as doubly challenging: first for the institution itself, and then for the authors, leading children's literature to clarify its role and prerogatives. Anachronistic stereotypes, borderline humor and the irreverence of what is left unsaid are among the distinctive strategies of a type of children's literature that manages to avoid didactic pitfalls yet does not relinquish to address and reassure the young audience.