Book Bearings
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
- 216 pages · about 4 hours
- First published 2006
- 98 editions
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1 About this book
Bruno is nine years old and lives in Berlin during the Second World War. When his father, an officer, is given an important new post, the family moves to a bleak house in the countryside, far from Bruno's friends. From his bedroom window he can see a long fence and, behind it, crowds of people in striped clothes, and nobody will explain to him who they are. Lonely and bored, he goes exploring along the fence and meets Shmuel, a boy of his own age who lives on the other side. John Boyne's 2006 novel, which he calls a fable, tells the story of their secret friendship through Bruno's uncomprehending eyes. A sequel, All the Broken Places, followed in 2022.
- Adventure
- Historical fiction
- Gas chambers
- Concentration camps
- Friendship
- Friendship in fiction
- Holocaust
- Jewish people
2 What to expect
A short Holocaust novel written as a fable, seen through the eyes of a nine-year-old German boy who does not understand what the fence near his new home encloses. The gap between what he sees and what the reader knows carries the story, which is simple in language and very dark in where it leads. Historians and Holocaust educators have criticized its inaccuracies, so it is best taken as a moral tale, not as history.
Good for readers who want: a short novel about the Holocaust, a child's point of view, and a story that stays with you.
3 About John Boyne
Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
4 More by John Boyne
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