"Fences like this exist all over the world. We hope you never have to encounter such a fence."A poignant and deeply moving portrayal of the experience of two young boys in Poland during World War II. The main character is nine-year-old Bruno, the son of a Nazi officer, and the book details his meeting with another boy, a Jewish prisoner in a concentration camp, named Shmuel, and the devastating consequences that follow.
The beauty of the book is the innocence and childlike perspective with which it is written, and it is what we bring to the book, with our knowledge of the atrocities of war that the unspoken horror of the story is revealed. The book does not fail to move, and as is implied by the subtitle "a fable" it also cries out to teach, so that we may learn from the past.
This is a wonderful piece of Historical fiction and the tone is both haunting and thought-provoking. In 2007, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas was awarded the Irish Children's Book of the Year and the People's Choice of the Year. It has received acclaim world wide and was released as a motion picture in 2008.
Cathy
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