The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
By Author / Illustrator
John Boyne
Genre
Historical Fiction
Age range(s)
11+
Publisher
Penguin Random House Children's UK
ISBN
9781862305274
Format
Paperback / softback
Published
11-09-2008
Synopsis
Lines may divide us, but hope will unite us . . .
Nine-year-old Bruno knows nothing of the Final Solution and the Holocaust. He is oblivious to the appalling cruelties being inflicted on the people of Europe by his country. All he knows is that he has been moved from a comfortable home in Berlin to a house in a desolate area where there is nothing to do and no one to play with. Until he meets Shmuel, a boy who lives a strange parallel existence on the other side of the adjoining wire fence and who, like the other people there, wears a uniform of striped pyjamas.
Bruno's friendship with Shmuel will take him from innocence to revelation. And in exploring what he is unwittingly a part of, he will inevitably become subsumed by the terrible process.
ReadingZone Note: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas has generated considerable debate, some of which is included in the following links:
Wild Song
Where the Heart Should Be
Yours From the Tower
Angel of Grasmere: From Dunkirk to the Fells
