Through the reading of two successful novels, separated by a century, ‘War of the Buttons’ and ‘Harry Potter’, Jean-Marie Gauthier and Roger Moukalou show that the difficulties of adolescence are the reflection of the time in which they are experienced. Adolescence is not ‘eternal’ in the way it expresses itself.

“Adolescence is often presented as a period fixed in time, independent of general social evolution,” explains Jean-Marie Gauthier, child psychiatrist specialising in the clinical child and adolescent psychology at the University of Liège. “Our book is derived from a desire to show the general public that the universe of the adolescent changes with society and that the difficulties with which young people are confronted differ from one era to another.”

To examine this complex issue, the authors decided to dissect two successful novels that focus on adolescents who are well anchored in their era: ‘War of the Buttons’ and ‘Harry Potter’. A hundred years apart, the characters in these two books have fascinated their young contemporaries. According to the authors, the success of these characters is directly linked to “the powerful process of identification that they activate in readers”. The latter find themselves in the relational and psychological situation of the hero and are consequently capable of entering into his world.

Over almost two years, the two specialists in adolescence dissected the two novels as well as another ‘classic’, ‘The Horse of Pride' by Pierre-Jakez Hélias. While Roger Moukalou focused on the main elements of the adventures of the young wizard, Jean-Marie Gauthier focused on ‘War of the Buttons’, ‘The Horse of Pride’ and the first two volumes of ‘Harry Potter’, to discover the revealing elements of the adolescent world that these works describe. This close reading led to their work, ‘De La Guerre des Boutons à Harry Potter’, published by Editions Mardaga.