The March for Our Lives was one of the biggest-ever marches in Washington, DC – and certainly better attended than the current president’s inauguration. González’s Twitter account, @Emma4Change, now has nearly double the number of followers of the NRA.

Will González and her classmates succeed where so many adults have failed, in achieving a tightening of gun laws in a trigger-happy country? Their first attempt failed: just a week after the shooting, they went to Florida state capital Tallahassee to try to get legislators to amend a bill to tighten gun laws.

But where adults might have thrown up their hands, these children have remained unfazed, even when doctored images and fake news threaten to discredit them. They’ve gathered hundreds of thousands of people into their movement, including high-profile adults like Oprah Winfrey and George and Amal Clooney, all of whom made substantial donations to funding the March.

The size of the movement that González and her friends have spearheaded is so astonishing  that it’s tempting to regard her as an icon, as a kind of Joan of Arc,  a young woman coming out of nowhere, leading the way to victory in a battle that once seemed unwinnable. But González is a real person, and the battle is not yet won, and I can’t help but think of what she wrote after her self- description in Harper’s Bazaar: “None of this matters anymore.”

Childhood ended for everyone at Marjory Stoneman Douglas on 14 February: none of the surviving students will ever be the same. But the ones to whom we’re collectively turning to change America’s gun-loving culture… for them,  I have the deepest admiration, but also the deepest concern.

How will they survive the trauma of losing their friends and being thrown  onto the global stage all at once? We should give them the Nobel Peace Prize. But we should also give them time, at some  point, to try to recover  something of themselves.

Images: Getty / Words: Jean Hannah Edelstein / Photography: Mike Stocker

Emma González: from student, to victim, to face of the anti-gun movement