For some children, their first experience of schooling may be of endless hours spent in stultifying boredom; for others, however, it is a source of delight and wonder – the underprivileged children who discover the world at large within its walls as they set off on all kinds of imaginary voyages that bring inner and outer landscapes together. Mona Ozouf offers us an unpretentious and deeply poetic evocation of this childhood world. She also distinguishes between the “lethal” boredom experienced by many, especially lower secondary-school pupils, and a “good boredom” induced by intervals during the school day – free time conducive to daydreaming and reading, but whose very emptiness seems to strike fear into the hearts of today’s parents and teachers, who do their utmost to fill it up with things to do. It is exactly this free time, however, which opens the door to reading and encourages thinking.