Boyne: Boy in the striped pyjamas
Boyne: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Nine year old Bruno knows nothing of the Final Solution and the Holocaust. He is oblivious to the appalling cruelties being inflicted on the people of Europe by his country. All he knows is that he has been moved from a comfortable home in Berlin to a house in a desolate area where there is nothing to do and no-one to play with. Until he meets Shmuel, a boy who lives a strange parallel existence on the other side of the adjoining wire fence and who, like the other people there, wears a uniform of striped pyjamas. Bruno’s friendship with Shmuel will take him from innocence to revelation. And in exploring what he is unwittingly a part of, he will inevitably become subsumed by the terrible process.
Check availablity on the East Renfrewshire Libraries’ catalogue
I recently read this after seeing the very well produced Hollywood film.
For anyone wondering if the book is better - I’d say a very big Yes!!
Although a very short book originally written for the teenage market, this novel is extremely powerful. Bruno and Shmuel are just two ordinary little boys caught up in a nightmare that neither of them understand. It is an extremely moving and thought provoking book with an ending which is impossible to forget.