Les lois du ciel

Grégoire Courtois's Les lois du ciel (2016) follows a kindergarten class from Claincy on a multi-day trip into the Morvan forest — around a dozen five- and six-year-old children and three adult supervisors. From the first afternoon, something is off, and as the adults' grip on the trip disintegrates, the children are left alone to fend for themselves.

Written in short, propulsive chapters, it's a tragicomic and deeply unsettling novel about innocence, cruelty, and what surfaces when the rules of civilization fall away — often compared to Lord of the Flies.