When I saw the film version at the cinema, the entire audience remained in their seats and sobbed into tissues as the credits rolled. I’ve never experienced anything like it since. With John Boyne finally releasing a much-anticipated sequel, I figured it was about time I read this!The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a simple, yet powerful fable-like story. It was a quick read, but one that will remain with me, and one which I’m still thinking about. This is definitely a book that pulls at the hear...

"When he closed his eyes, everything around him just felt empty and cold, as if he was in the loneliest place in the world. The middle of nowhere."*May 2021 Re-readOne of the worst fictional sister characters. Gretel, you're really annoying. Exactly a Hopeless Case.Maria's character is memorable. She's grateful and I really appreciate such characters in stories.But you know the most memorable character in the entire story is? The one who peels potatoes. Pavel. I will always have a soft spot for ...

Two innocent boys, and two very different worlds, separated by a not so infallible fence.Berlin 1942, middle of WWII, beginnings of the Holocaust. Bruno is a little boy of barely nine years old, son of a very well standing german family. His life passes relatively uneventful until one day his father is appointed commander in a faraway region. Bruno, his sister Gretel and his parents are compelled to relocate to Out-With, to a much smaller house, forsaking family and friends, and sacrificing ever...

3.5*

I didn't love this, but I did appreciate the fact that it had a very powerful message (and an ending I wasn't expecting at all). My feelings were definitely changed by the fact that the author describes the story as a fable. The abstractness makes a lot more sense in that way. Definitely an unforgettable read, nonetheless!

There are plenty of insightful reviews on this piece of sensationalist, badly written, idiotic Disneyfication of the Holocaust on Goodreads. I don't have anything to add to the criticism, except that I would love to see it taken off the curriculum in schools.Here are my replacement suggestions:Upon the Head of the Goat: A Childhood in Hungary 1939-1944When Hitler Stole Pink RabbitA Day of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in WarsawAnd of course for more mature students, I recommend Anne Fran...

"The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" would easily top my list of "Worst Books about the Holocaust."I am writing as one who was there -- I was once myself a boy in striped pajamas and am a survivor of six German concentration camps. This book is so ignorant of historical facts about concentration camps that it kicks the history of the Holocaust right in the teeth.John Boyne's premise is that the nine-year old son of the commandant of Auschwitz, bored with his isolated life, takes walks to the fence s...

As Michael Kors once sighed to a clueless designer on Project Runway: Where do I start? Let's open with some descriptive words that sum up this book, and I will then go on to explain them in further detail: Patronizing. Insipid. Smarmy. Just plain bad. Patronizing: I believe that to write good children's literature, you have to think that children are intelligent, capable human beings who are worth writing for - like Stephen King, who probably thinks kids are smarter than adults. The author of T...

A powerful concept, but very poorly written (even allowing for the young adult target audience) - and one of a tiny number of books I can think of that was better in the film version.PlotBruno is 9 and lives in Berlin in 1943 with his parents and 12 year old sister. They are wealthy and his father is an important soldier who is promoted to be the Commandant at Auschwitz. The trick of the story is that Bruno doesn't realise the horror of what goes on behind the barbed wire, where everyone wears s...

I seriously suggest you read about what happened to real children in the Holocaust. It won't fill your thoughts for many days or shock you; rather it will fill your LIFE and make you feel sick to the core of your being.Paul Friedlander, himself a survivor, recounts in his recent highly praised book the incident of 90 Jewish infants all under the age of five, orphaned after their parents were murdered in a mass shooting.These children were subjected to indescribable mistreatment for days.Then the...

I hardly know where to begin bashing this book. Do I start with the 9-year-old boy and his 12-year-old sister, who read about 6 and 8, respectively? The imperial measurements (miles, feet) despite the German setting? The German boy, raised in Berlin, who thinks that Der Führer is "The Fury" and Auschwitz is "Out-With," despite being corrected several times and seeing it written down? The other English-language idioms and mis-hearings, despite our being told that he speaks only German? And that h...