Ghosts, Gremlins, and “the War on Terror” in Children’s Blitz Fiction

This essay argues that war stories for adults and for children approach wartime violence from different angles but for the same purpose: to reestablish the place of embattled individuals within the unstable social and political circumstances of a nation at war. Employing heroes and fantasy to describe timeless, archetypal battles between Good and Evil, children’s literature offers a space within which to explore the present, specific battles of a child’s life in wartime. The essay examines children’s literature from the Second World War to the present, raising questions about the representation of 9/11 and its aftermath in contemporary children’s fiction.