From 1870-1919 French children's literature echoes sociological, pedagogical and ideological change. Studying the impact of war on children's publications involves working back to official directives, as well as observing the latter's effect within, outside or peripheral to the school context. The heart of this problematic is to be found in the question of obedience to, or deviation from, governmental directives. The Third Republic's educational doctrine (1880-1890) is a decisive stage in orientating minds towards an "ethics in action". School manuals, spelling-books, illustrated albums and library books take over from official ideology, and chart the move from the full flush of civic commitment to patriotic exaltation. Iconography takes its place in nationally disseminated novels bearing the tricolour standard. We structure our approach around a chronological framework: the trauma of 1870, a transitory period, and the Great War. Each stage offers a paradigmatic vision of ideological communication by literature. Recourse to official texts clearly identifies how young minds were impregnated by patriotic, bellicose and Germanophobe sentiment. Our research project, analyzing values purveyed in children's war literature, has hitherto attracted little attention: therein lies its originality. Analysis reveals gaps in understanding of the period 1914-1918: hence emphasis placed on contemporary literature pertaining to the Great War. Despite their propagandist tendencies, the works and their accompanying illustrative art in full development at the time reveal the unsuspected treasure of literary ingenuity which a vast production of texts can alone allow us fully to appraise.
