ABSTRACT
To imagine that more than a very few children’s books would be written about 9/11 was initially speculative. It seemed in many ways unlikely to consider that the horror and magnitude of the event could be represented in young adult fi ction, much less picture books. A knowledge of children’s literature supports the idea, however, that few kinds of books are entirely taboo. Children’s literary theory also supports the understanding that children’s books, like all texts, play a role in the production of identities. This literature already informed us that the texts, if they were to be written at all, would be complex, varied and most likely as ambiguous and contradictory as the responses to the attacks on New York themselves.
