Lovely Little Shelf

The Book: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, by John Boyne

The Story: Bruno is a young boy living in Germany during WWII.  His father is a higher-up and Hitler (who he calls, “the Fury”) has had dinner at their house.  During this dinner, Bruno’s father gets a promotion.  Soon after, the family moves.  Bruno is initially completely heartbroken and lonely.  He spends his first months lonely, watching these mysterious people from his bedroom window.  He’s confused about what they’re doing, where they are and why they wear pajamas all day long.

One day, he decides to do some exploring and gets to the edge of the camp he calls “out-with” and meets a boy that is the same age as him.  They develop a friendship and Bruno starts to get little glimpses of what is going on on the other side of the fence and what it is his dad is involved in.  That loss of innocence is the main focus of this book, along with the friendship between Bruno and his Jewish friend, Schmuel.

What I Thought: I got this book from the library after talking about it with a good friend.  She said that she read it and it gave her a new perspective on the Holocaust, mainly because it was written from the point of view of a German boy.  Most books about this time period are written from the perspective of Jews, so this was something really new.  What is funny is that during that time, I was reading Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian.  It is also written from the perspective of a German family, so as soon as I finished that one, I went and got The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.  I wanted to contrast how it was handled differently in a children’s book versus in an adult book.  I’ll review Skeletons at the Feast later this week and let you know what I thought.

Anyway!

I read this book in one sitting.  I seriously devoured it.  What was endearing, for me, was just Bruno’s innocence.  His father was a devout Nazi and there were all these things going on around their house, but the children were left entirely separated from it.  When they were asked to move and ended up at Auschwitz , Bruno still didn’t really know what was going on and how his father was directly involved.  It was great how the author didn’t make this “big reveal” of what was going on- we had our eyes opened slowly, pieces fit together little by little- just how things generally work in a child’s mind.  I thought that this was really well done.

The only thing that I really had a problem with is that we were told that the narrator, Bruno, only speaks German.  Throughout the book, he repeatedly mis-hears things (”The Fury” for Der Fuhrer, “Out With” for Auschwitz….) and the words he comes up with are… English? Hm.  I know that a kid reading this book probably wouldn’t catch that or even care, but for some reason this kind of rubbed me the wrong way.  He also says that he thought that, “Heil Hitler” was a fancier way to say “Hello”… and he’s 9 years old.  I don’t really buy that for a minute.  In these ways he just seems much younger than he really is, however I understand the point that the author was trying to make and this really did contribute a lot to the feeling from the get-go that he is just really pure and innocent.

I thought that this was an interesting read, without a doubt.  I kept thinking, throughout the book, that this would be an excellent way to introduce the Holocaust to kids.  It shows the truth without being graphic.  It tells what is happening, but is kind of “lite” in the way that it is presented.  While I’m not entirely sure that it adds anything to the adult collection of books on the Holocaust, it can certainly hold its own.

Conclusion: I would tell anyone to give up a couple of hours to this book.  It is kind of a new perspective and really made me think. Especially for kids between the ages of 9ish and 12 or 13, this would be a great jumping off point.