Book Review: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
I just finished this book. The book jacket is a little unusual so I’m going to quote it here for all of you that haven’t read it:
The story of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is very difficult to describe. Usually we give some clues about the book on the jacket, but in this case we think that would spoil the reading of the book. We think it is important that you start to read without knowing what it is about.
If you do start to read this book, you will go on a journey with a nine-year-old boy called Bruno. (Though this isn’t a book for nine-year-olds.) And sooner or later you will arrive with Bruno at a fence.
Fences like this exist all over the world. We hope you never have to encounter such a fence.
While I do think this is a good book, I don’t think it as significant as whoever wrote that summary does. Anyway, the book is about a nine-year old boy, Bruno, who is extremely naive (if he had been younger, the whole story would have been a lot more believable). Bruno’s father is a commandant in Nazi Germany and is sent with him family to run Auschwitz. Bruno goes exploring along the fence that surrounds the camp and meets a little boy on the other side of the fence.
As I mentioned before, Bruno should have been younger – the story would have worked better. Although the evidence is right in front of his face, he never really figures out what is really going on. I think most nine-year-olds would have picked up on the clues and put it all together.
The other thing that bothered me (and this is a tiny nit-picky detail but it really bugged me) is that Bruno called Hitler, “the Fury” and Auschwitz “Out-With”. I understand the symbolism, it’s not all that subtle, but the book was written in English, but they would have been speaking German and as far as I know (which isn’t very far at all…) these words do not sound the same in German. Anyone who speaks more German than me care to correct me? (Sprechen Sie Deutsch?)
Overall, if was a good read, easy to get through and has a definite message. It told a true story about WWII without being overly depressing, mostly because Bruno was so naive – in fact that was the most depressing thing about the book. But just a warning – and I saw this coming from a mile away – the ending is horrifying, but it’s also kind of fitting. Make sense? I would give this one a 7/10.
Tags: Auschwitz, Bruno, John Boyne, WWII
June 27th, 2009 at 2:58 am
I agree – there were a lot of things that were unrealistic in this book. I think you just have to try not to think about them and realise what a powerful book this is – hopefully teenagers will get a lot from reading this book.