Boy In the Striped Pajamas (Movie Tie-in Edition)
Berlin 1942When 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 from their home to a new house far far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence running alongside stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people he can see 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 to his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.
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Book Description
This work was set in 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 from their home to a new house far far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence running alongside stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people he can see in the distance. But, Bruno longs to be an explorer and decides that there must be more to this desolate new place than what meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different to his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is now a major motion picture (releasing in November 2008). Enjoy these images from the film, and click the thumbnails to see a larger image in a new browser window.  |  |  |  |
From School Library Journal
Starred Review. Grade 9 Up–Boyne has written a sort of historical allegory–a spare, but vividly descriptive tale that clearly elucidates the atmosphere in Nazi Germany during the early 1940s that enabled the persecution of Eastern European Jews. Through the eyes of Bruno, a naive nine-year-old raised in a privileged household by strict parents whose expectations included good manners and unquestioning respect for parental authority, the author describes a visit from the Fury and the familys sudden move from Berlin to a place called Out-With in Poland. There, not 50 feet away, a high wire fence surrounds a huge dirt area of low huts and large square buildings. From his bedroom window, Bruno can see hundreds (maybe thousands) of people wearing striped pajamas and caps, and something made him feel very cold and unsafe. Uncertain of what his father actually does for a living, the boy is eager to discover the secret of the people on the other side. He follows the fence into the distance, where he meets Shmuel, a skinny, sad-looking Jewish resident who, amazingly, has his same birth date. Bruno shares his thoughts and feelings with Shmuel, some of his food, and his final day at Out-With, knowing instinctively that his father must never learn about this friendship. While only hinting at violence, blind hatred, and deplorable conditions, Boyne has included pointed examples of bullying and fearfulness. His combination of strong characterization and simple, honest narrative make this powerful and memorable tale a unique addition to Holocaust literature for those who already have some knowledge of Hitlers Final Solution.–Susan Scheps, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH
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From Booklist
Gr. 7-10. Some of the most thought-provoking Holocaust books are about bystanders, including those who say they did not know what was happening. This first novel tells the bystander story from the viewpoint of an innocent child. Bruno is nine when his family moves from their luxurious Berlin home to the country, where "the Fury" has appointed Bruno's father commandant. Lost and lonely, the child hates the upheaval, while his stern but kind father celebrates his success because he has learned to follow orders. Bruno can see a concentration camp in the distance, but he has no idea what is going on, even when he eventually meets and makes friends with Shmuel, a boy from Cracow, who lives on the other side of the camp fence. The boys meet every day. They even discover that they have the same birthday. It's all part of a poignant construct: Shmuel is Bruno's alternative self, and as the story builds to a horrifying climax, the innocent's experience brings home the unimaginable horror. Pair this with Anne Frank's classic diary and Anita Lobel's No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War (1998). Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Customer Reviews
A Book for the Entire Family
Excellent book. This captivating story was well written. People of ANY age can relate to this book. Even though it's a book about the Holocaust, almost anyone that understands the bonds of humanity and friendship can relate to this storyline. In addition, most human beings have experienced a "fence" in their life. We have all (at one point or another) had a wall that separated us from someone or something. Overall, I think the author very respectfully told a story warped around a horrific time in human history. I would love to see the movie, I hope they did the book justice.
A heartbreaking story...
Summary: Bruno is 9 years old. He lives in a difficult time, in Germany during the World War II. One day, Bruno comes home to find that his maid, packing all his things. His family and him move to Out-With (Auschwitz). In his window, he can see a concentration camp, where everyone wears striped pajamas. He thinks that they are "neighbors". He misses Berlin and his friends there. He want to return, but since his dad is in charge of the camp. He is unable to.
After being inside for a couple months with his sister, Gretel, he decides to explore the fence and visit his "neighbors". He befriends a boy born on his birthday, Shmuel. He visits him everyday and they become friends.
My Review: I found this book very interesting, because I love history and the many different voices available to us. I have never read a book about the Holocaust in which the person didn't know what happening and John Boyne wrote that only a young child would work for it. So, you could see a child's view of evil. This book will ache at your heart. It is pretty deep reading, I would say if you can read Anne Frank's diary or Night. Then this book will not be too much for you. John Boyne does an amazing job.
Quite the adventure
in a sentence: meet a boy named Bruno and discover the unfamiliar and confusing adventure that awaits him.
i'll be honest - the number one thing that interested me about this book was that the inside cover. they thought it would spoil the reading of the book to give anything away and beleived it was important to start to read without knowing what is it about. having read it, i totally agree with that sentiment and will try and do my best to review without spoiling! though there is a movie version already, so you may already know.
Bruno and his family live in Berlin, and is pretty happy with his life actually. he's a typical 9 year old boy with a typical bratty older sister (she's 12, practically a teenager) and doting house servants. he loves adventures and exploring and all the fun discoveries that come with that sort of thing. something happens that leads his family to move away from his home and he is not pleased about that.
i absolutely adored Bruno's voice in this book. that's not to say that he was the narrator, because he wasn't really. it is his voice that is heard mostly in the book and his phrasing and everything, but we also get a peek into the thoughts of others through his eyes and through general narration. i'm not explaining it very well, but i really did like the way that Boyne did that.
Bruno experiences the changes and new experiences through his 9 year old eyes, and so do we. it is with this naivety and simple acceptance that we learn what is going on in the story. there are some internal struggles, some serious questions and curiosity - but he is only 9 after all and who cares about what a 9 year old wants to know? so mostly Bruno discovers things for himself and does his best to make sense of them, and what he can't make sense of, he shrugs away.
this was absolutely one of the best pieces of literature i have ever written. not purely because of the subject matter, but because of how it was written. i am seriously impressed with using a 9 year old as a narrator successfully and in a way that brought me to that level of naivety without any hint of condescension. even the chapter titles were 9-year-old-yet-adult-geared without being condescending. it was just incredible, and if you haven't read this yet - do it! you'll thank me.
fave (non-spoiler) quote: "One afternoon, when Bruno came home from school, he was surprised to find Maria, the family maid - who always kept her head bowed and never looked up from the carpet - standing in his bedroom, pulling all his belongings out of the wardrobe and packing them in four large wooden crates, even the things he'd hidden at the back that belonged to him and were nobody else's business." (opening paragraph and it totally sucked me in / set the tone for the book).
fix er up: a tad predictable, but that didn't hurt the overall impact and beauty of the writing.
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