The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

by John Boyne

Two young boys encounter the best and worst of humanity during the Holocaust in this powerful read that USA Today called "as memorable an introduction to the subject as The Diary of Anne Frank.”  

Berlin, 1942: When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move to a new house far, far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people in the distance. 

But Bruno longs to be an explorer and decides that there must be more to this desolate new place than meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different from his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.

• ISBN10: 0385751532
• ISBN13: 9780385751537
• Publish Date: 23 October 2007
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: David Fickling Books
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 224
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780385751537

Reviews

[Stephanie]

This review was originally posted on Once Upon a Chapter



Where do you even start to write a review for a book like The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne? It's not something you want to call fantastic because the subject matter is so serious. Really what Boyne has done is brilliant. He's taken the scariest part of WWII, Auschwitz, and scaled it down to something a child can come to terms with. He does this and is still able to do it without all of the horrifying details that go along with it.

Bruno and his family move to the middle of nowhere when his father accepts authority over Auschwitz. Bruno struggles to adapt but makes the best of it and makes friends with a child from the "farms".

Reading this book written for a child as an adult was difficult but not int he way that you'd think. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas showed that during some of the most brutal years in recent history innocent still existed. Seeing that innocence juxtaposed with such depravity was hard to grasp. I hope to read more of Boyne's work in the future.