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.
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.

Customer Rating:
Summary: A Book for the Entire Family
Comment: 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.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A heartbreaking story...
Comment: 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.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Quite the adventure
Comment: 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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Customer Rating:
Summary: Where is it?
Comment: Christmas has come & gone and I haven't received this book that was to be a present. Don't promise delivery if it's not going to happen.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Comment: This book is warm, chilling and haunting. So far, 3 people have agreed with this synopsis. This book should be required reading, but I'm not sure for whom anymore. We just can't forget what DID happen, and some people tend to just forget. Once I get this book back, as it's going onto 3 others, I'm keeping it. To read again, once I stop thinking about it. It's just excellent. If you like kids and history, make this book on your next list to buy.

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