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Berlin, book review, childrens fiction, Fiction, Holocaust, john boyne, the boy in the striped pyjamas, world war 2
The boy in the striped pajamas by John Boyne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Even though this book is about the Holocaust and Auschwitz there is a persistent, deliberate sense of censorship that haunts the narrative and stops us from truly experiencing the horrors of the concentration camp. This will either have one of two effects on the reader: either they will be attracted to this ‘lighter’ way of story-telling, or they will be completely put off by it.
The story is about Bruno, a nine-year old boy living in Berlin with his wealthy family, who comes home one day from school to find they are moving to a place called ‘Out-With’. Bruno is greatly disappointed and mourns the fact that he will no longer be able to play at exploring the nooks and crannies of the grand, mahogany rooms. This tumultuous change in family life is all due to his father’s promotion, which coincided with a personal visit from a short, cold-mannered and rather rude man known as ‘the Fury’.
Bruno resents the visit and the ensuing developments that cause his family to move, and when they do eventually arrive at their new home his disappointment grows into despair. ‘Out-With’ turns out to be a desolate place in the middle of nowhere and no place for a young adventurous boy to grow up. Even his mother objects and is uneasy with their surroundings; which he knows only because he hears his parents arguing about it.
With no friends to play with and no other houses for miles around, Bruno tries to make the best of things; however it doesn’t take long before Bruno’s inquisitive nature gets the better of him and he discovers that there are people living nearby. People living in a high-walled building; people who walk around listlessly wearing nothing but blue striped pyjamas. Bruno’s imagination is ignited and it is not long before he finds a way to reach this place and befriend a boy, just like him, who has had to leave his home behind because of the ‘Fury’.
What ensues is a friendship that destroys ethnic and religious boundaries and which ends in a final, cruel twist of fate.
Boyne warns us that this is ultimately a fable, a cautionary tale and that it is not true; even though the rare moments when we do get a glimpse of the horrors of Auschwitz goes to show that Boyne stays faithful to real accounts of that time.
However, I assume Boyne chose to write the story through the eyes of a nine-year-old in order to cultivate a more innocent, ‘fable-like’ approach. And indeed this not only leaks into the perspective, but also into the language of the characters in the form of ‘Out-With’ and ‘the Fury’. This, and other forms of censorship/ banning of ‘bad’ words are both a blessing and a curse. I initially read this book with a group of Year 8 students, and appreciated the fact that the story was clean and straight-forward to read. It also helped that they had to do a little thinking to figure out who ‘the Fury’ was and what ‘Out-With’ meant. However, I couldn’t help smiling when some more ‘awake’ readers complained that the main character was a little dumb. My twelve-year olds had touched on a very good point.
While Boyne was trying to make a terrible account about WW2 and concentration camps more accessible for younger children; he has also managed to ‘lobotimize’ it too. From experience I (and my year 8′s) know that most 9 year-olds are not as ignorant as the way Bruno is portrayed to be in the novel. They are the exact opposite: inquisitive and highly precocious. Children at that age learn things almost by osmosis and I feel (like my students) that Boyne made a grave mistake when dumbing his main character down like that.
If you are looking for an ideal book for your 11-13 year old that will tie in with their History classes and is a little more conservative, then this is the perfect book. However I would suggest that reading together would be the best, as then issues and questions can be raised about the narrative, who knows, you might be surprised about the intelligent responses you get as I did.
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I saw the movie but haven’t read this book. I remember thinking the same thing, that my daughter at Bruno’s age wouldn’t have been as clueless about the whole situation. Such a sad story, regardless of its flaws.
I think all these reviewers are probably too young to remember life in the 1940′s (I’m not!!). Children then were far less precocious: “seen and not heard” was the order of the day, and we remained ‘children’ for far longer. I think that Bruno is very well-drawn indeed. This is probably reflected in my reluctance to encourage my grandsons to read it; I felt one needed to have a proper perspective on the holocaust to begin to understand it.
I read this book last year and thought that the book worked really well portrayed through the eyes of a child
Anna: I have seen most of the movie too with the pupils and I have to say the movie was much better. The language in the book can be a bit repetitive at times so seeing a visual interpretation helped.
She Loves to Read: I agree with you there. There are very few ‘children’s’ book out there as YA has blurred the boundaries a lot by including many adult elements. I’d have never picked this as a read myself. I’m glad you enjoyed it too.
This got me thinking on what’s preferable in a child narrator– off-puttingly precocious (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) or condescendingly naive (this one). It’s a rare author who doesn’t err in either direction, but if one must, how would you rather see a kid written?
I’d rather they were precocious if push came to shove. Kids can probably identify a lot better with a narrator that is full of curiosity like they are. But Boyne was obviously aiming for something quite specific when he fashioned his naive main character, so I can’t really blame him if it went a bit pear shaped.
Like you said, it’s a hard thing to do. I recently read and REALLLY enjoyed ‘Holes’ by Louis Sacher who again, has a naive main character, but I think that works well because we are told quite early on he is a bit slow and has that whole family curse thing going on.
There’s that sympathy factor there, and also the dumbness. Whereas here there’s nothing wrong with the kid. He’s bored, he’s closeted in the house, so that means IMHO he should be climbing the walls from frustration and asking LOTS of questions!
It’s a thorny issue Doug. BTW, have you changed your blog? What’s all this ‘read, you bastard’? lol!
We as a yr 8 class have recently read this book- and I found the book was making out that a nine year old was completely dumb ( they most certainly aren’t!). Also, Shmuel was too young to have worked and that was not well researched either.
Hi Katie, thanks for your views and welcome to the blog. Yes, many reviewers are annoyed about how some parts of the story don’t fit with history.It didn’t really matter with me, I was too concerned about the glaring mistreatment of the characters (marionettes, I call them) to notice any historical mismatches.
How did the class respond to the book? Would you rather have read something different, say Morpurgo’s ‘War Horse’? I can’t help thinking that while it was a good choice for our school, it didn’t really offer any of the able students a chance to really stretch themselves. It’s hard finding the middle ground sometimes.
good point
what are you talking about
this book is impecably amazing through it is not for children under the age of 9
its a good book and the end was very surprising
but i think he wouldn’t have got killed if it wasn’t for his parents.
they didn’t tell him that the fence was a bad environment for him
the book is verrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyy boring
Care to explain why?
this is a very good review
Because its aimed at little children
personally i really liked this book and i loved the film too!!!
Hi Molly, I didn’t get to watch the whole movie (we were watching it during lesson time) but I feel the story translated better onto film. The director was able to explore the naivety of Bruno better than the way Boyne was trying to through words alone.
I THINK THIS BOOK I GOOD BUT BAD AT THE SAME TIME BUT IF YOU DIDN’T PUT IT IN A CHILDS POINT OF VIEW THIS BOOK WOULDN’T BE HERE I THINK JOHN DID A GRATE JOB
Thanks for your comment Jac, but a little advice on the way you word them. Spelling errors, caps lock and incorrect sentence structures are not the issue here. Calling other commenters ‘Dick’ or otherwise, is. Please be a bit smarter next time you post a comment with that kind of language because it will be deleted and you will be blocked. Let’s be respectful of other people’s opinions, thank you.
myworldlyobsessions, it seems like you’re really trying to put John Boyne down. No offense and sorry if you weren’t, but that’s just how I perceived it. Personally, I really loved this book! It’s true that Bruno seems a little too naive, but I still loved it.
No offense taken, and sorry if my review came across as a put down. If you read my review properly, I did give ample enough reasons as to why I thought it wasn’t up to scratch and I believe that’s how you give constructive criticism. If I were just saying ‘it’s crap’ etc, THAT would be insulting and not a fair, balanced review of the book.
I reiterate, I read this with a class and had the opportunity to watch their reactions to the storyline and discovered what elements worked and what didn’t. Mixed into the review was also my own personal opinion of the book as a text to teach. Yes, it is highly teachable, yes it contains vocabulary that most would not have come across before, but it lacks that certain something and the kids felt it too. THEY are the target audience and I’m afraid to say that kids are quite often most brutally honest about what they like and don’t like.
I don’t think is fair to compare the children now days with the children lived back then. The life would be simpler as they have no television or internet, and many children might not even get to go to school. Even if they were in school, they were most likely to be brain washed with information that were not true. For example, Some Japanese denys the killings in China during WWII and did not put it in their history book.
I think the author did a good job in telling the story in the German child’s point of view. It’s new and it was never done before. The author also stated he wasn’t trying focus too much on the history as there were too many books about it. He wanted to focus more on the friendship and the family relationship. It is a fantastic movie. Now I want to read the book. n_n
Akarli, I think you are being a little unfair in saying children back then were mostly too naive and simpler than the children of now because of lack of technology. Yes, schooling may have been for the rich, and information may have been censored; but children had a far more extended vocabulary than children nowadays. As someone in education I know for a fact that kids today have quite poor literacy and numeracy skills compared to a century ago.
Let me put it this way; Bruno is the son of a soldier quite high up in the Nazi regime. Hitler has even been to dinner once or twice in his house. He has seen and probably overheard conversations of soldiers in and around the house. He has certainly overheard his mother and father arguing (as in the book). He has a grandparent who is very vocal in her disapproval of her son’s current job in life. All these are a factor of the ‘friendship and family’ aspect that Boyne wanted to represent, yet Bruno is deliberately being disconnected and not allowed to explore/ asks questions about why there are children half starving in a camp he can see from his bedroom window.
I’m sorry but you can’t really have a big secret like ‘what job does daddy do’ under one roof without Bruno catching on somehow. But having said that, I really feel the ending of the novel was truly devastating. Shame that the language couldn’t have been a bit sharper. It ended far too quickly and simply.
I love this book it is amazing and well written. I am reading it and I am in grade 6, I really enjoy it and I can’t put it down.
I really liked the book altough I thought the ending could have been a little better and that Bruno could have understood more then he did.
Brianna – I’m really happy you enjoyed it. It’s very cleverly thought out. The best bit for me was Bruno and Shmuel’s friendship. I wish they had run away and escaped together.
Sarah – Well done to you too. And extra brownie points for being brave about saying your opinions.
I thinkit was good and I am in y6
I only think he needs to make bruno smarter
thank you myworldlyobsessions. Yes, i agree with all the complaints that people have put in, as I do agree myself that the storyline should have been a little stronger and that he shoud have had Bruno understanding a little bit more of what was goingon. I mean, it isnt very well thought out as no part of the camp would be left unguarded.
But puting all that aside, it was a truly heart wrenching book, and I loved it to pieces!!!
Brill I read it for a book in school.
this book is a work of literate jenius, great review aswell
really good book and im only 11