The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

Synopsis:
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 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.

My Review:
This book was so good but SO haunting. I thought about this book long after I finished reading it considering the subject matter and the way it was presented. The story, told through the eyes of a child named Bruno, makes these atrocities even more disturbing because having to justify and explain evil will never make sense to children and it should never make sense to any of us. I read a Q & A the author did at the end of the book and he explained that an integral part to the story is the theme of the innocence of a child juxtaposed with the evil that comes from this world. When Bruno asked questions and expressed curiosity about the differences between the Nazis and the Jews to the people around him it showed just how crazy those reasons were for deciding one race is superior to another. In this sense a child’s mind proved in the best way how hatred towards others can be played out in the most unimaginable ways.

The writing reminded me a lot C. S. Lewis and “The Chronicles of Narnia” in the way that something can be simply stated while at the same time having such a profound meaning. I cried a few times during this book even though I am sure it is not the most disturbing of books about the Holocaust but the horror of that event is all the same-families were torn apart, lives were destroyed, and innocence people were killed. This was a quick read and I would recommend it to people of all ages.