The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

John Boyne

Dec 2008 · Sold by David Fickling Books

About this ebook

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.

Ratings and reviews

This book is good for like, 6th and 7th graders, I was made to read this book in highschool and it angered me a lot because of how watered down it was. Bruno was very young and an innocent kid, I know, but John Boyne probably should've done a bit more research on what German children were taught at young ages and such. Bruno just made me mad considering how ignorant he was. Many would say this is a fantastic example of a story about WWII and discrimination, but I say that's only the case to show children. If you want a really good WWII story from the view of a survivor or victim, Maus and Maus II is a whole lot better as well as The Diary of Anne Frank. If I read this book when I was 11 or 12, I would deem it a very good book because I was more ignorant and didn't know much better about the world and such, I just personally don't like the book as much because I find it ridiculous that I'm reading this book in highschool when it's obviously meant for elementary or middle schoolers. Bruno angered me sometimes as well, like his ignorance and how Shmuel listened to him without any complaint. He does realize how Shmuel must feel listening to him, which really reflects people in real life complaining about the privilege and things they should really be grateful for in front of people who have nothing. That was a good factor at least, showing this about the ignorance of the privileged, but it's otherwise not my favorite story about WWII considering how watered down this is.

Lonely and Forgotten, Bruno, the son of a Nazi Commandant moves to a new house outside of Berlin. There, he began exploring and made a discovery, a boy named Shmuel. The two boys have decent discussions and begin exploring, not knowing where and what situation they're in. This book describes the Holocaust in a third-person. I liked how the author told the story in a child's perspective. It made me want to jump into the book and explain everything to Bruno. This book indeed opened my eyes to seriousness of genocide. What I did not like was that Bruno and his sister could be so childish at times and it urged me to skip ahead. Overall, I think this is a great book describing the Holocaust and the different viewpoints of people.

A fictional Holocaust story about eight year old Bruno who's family leaves their comfy five story home in a nice neighborhood when his father gets a promotion. His father is a "head-honcho" for Hitler, so he moves his family and Bruno to the house at the end of a long street in another country where their are no houses around as far as the eye can see. There is just the barber wire of a concentration camp that Bruno's father is now running, and a bench facing "the wrong way". The thing is, Bruno doesn't know about WWII or Nazi's or concentration camps. He just wants to know why all the people or the other side of the fence where striped pajamas. One day Bruno meets one of those people, a kid, the same age as him. Together they start a secret relation ship, and begin to realize that the only thing really different between them is what side of the fence they live on

About the author

John Boyne was born in Ireland in 1971 and studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and the University of East Anglia, Norwich. His novels have been published in over forty languages, and his books for young readers include Noah Barleywater Runs Away and The Terrible Thing That Happened to Barnaby Brocket. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas won two Irish Book Awards, topped the New York Times bestseller list, and was adapted into a Miramax feature film. He lives in Dublin. To learn more, visit JohnBoyne.com.