Enjoyed the film more than the book. Did not like the simplistic writing style, found the boy irritating and naieve. ( )

Nine-year-old Bruno loves living in his five-story house in Berlin, playing with his three best friends for life, and exploring, and he is devastated when his father’s promotion to commandant means that the family must move to “Out-With, ” where the house has only three stories, and there are no friends to play with. The only thing he has left to do is to explore, and so he goes against his parents wishes and starts exploring. Before long, he meets Schmeul, another 9-year-old boy. Schmeul lives on the other side of a fence that surrounds a large camp filled with people who wear striped pajamas with matching caps all day. Bruno and Schmeul become close friends, meeting every day at the same spot in the fence.

As an adult with the benefit of historical hindsight, you can probably figure out what’s going on here. This novel, which author John Boyne has called a fable, tells a story of the Holocaust through the eyes of a child who lives outside the fence and whose only window into the truth is another child. It’s an interesting exercise that was, for me, at times perplexing and at times moving. Now that I’ve finished the audiobook, I can’t quite make up my mind about it.

I loved the idea of looking at the Holocaust through the eyes of a German child. Bruno is a complete innocent. He doesn’t know what’s going on, and on the few occasions that he gets any whisper of actual information, he has no way of processing it. Who really could, unless they are forced to? But there were times I couldn’t quite believe Bruno’s naiveté. He knows nothing about Jews, he calls Hitler the “Fury,” and he doesn’t actually know what Hitler does—just that’s he’s powerful. About all he knows is how to give the Nazi salute. For the son of a Nazi commandant to be so ignorant seems unlikely, and as a result, the story itself feels artificial.

The artifice problem also comes up in Boyne’s choice not to ever name Auschwitz itself. Bruno mispronounces it as “Out-With,” and even when other characters correct him, Boyne never gives the actual name. In the interview on the audio version, Boyne says that this was because he wanted to universalize the theme, but it feels tricksy to me, and it took me out of the story every time. Evil is universal enough; naming the camp wouldn’t make the horror of it less relevant, especially when you’ve already sort of named it anyway.

Despite these criticisms, I did find the story moving, and the ending was a punch in the gut. That’s the part I’m really of two minds about. Holocaust stories are tragic stories, but there are a few aspects of the tragedy here that felt like they were there for shock value and not because they are necessary to the story. The ending was deeply affecting, but also rather manipulative. The book will stick with me because of the ending, but I’m not sure it will stick with me in the best way.

See my complete review at my blog. ( )

An easy read. Sad twist to story at the end and very thought provoking. Highly recommended.

A terribly moving book with a very sad twist at the end. Short and quick read but thought provoking ( )

The Boy In the Striped Pajamas is a Children's Book that isn't really a Children's Book. It's a "fable" that touches on Nazi concentration camps in World War II and is told from the point of view of a naive nine-year old boy. Short enough to finish in a sitting, it is an interesting story concerning a dangerous friendship between two little boys during World War II. One of the boys is Jewish and the other is not. The fable seems to say that genocides occur because people are naive to what is happening around them. I have trouble believing that anyone, even an eight-year old boy, could be that guileless. I understand the literary tool that his naivete serves for the fable, but think that acts of evil are perpetrated not just because people don't understand what is happening around them but because many people are complicit or are willfully ignorant out of convenience. The fable does, at a more subtle level, seem to touch on the idea of people being aware of an evil being perpetrated and participating anyway. Those vile characters seem to have concern for nothing and no one beyond themselves; blinded by their own needs and hatred, they are naive to the extraordinary consequences their actions have for the innocent. ( )