Title: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
Author: John Boyne
Publisher: Random House, 2008
Pages: 216
Rating: 4/5

I first heard about The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas as a movie and thought it was one to watch. I later found out that it is based on a book and that got me even more interested. I normally prefer to read the book first so I held off from watching the movie until I read it. This book is also one of the books I chose for the War Through the Generations - WWII challenge.

Bruno is the nine year old son of a Commandant in Nazi Germany. Due to his father's job his family is moved from their home in Berlin to Auschwitz. Bruno does not understand why they have to move and he certainly doesn't like it. Their new home is not as nice as the one in Berlin and he misses his three best friends for life, besides there is nothing to do here and he has no friends to play with. From his bedroom window he can see lots of other kids at the other side of the fence, all wearing striped pyjamas, but he is not allowed to go over there and play with them. One day Bruno is out exploring when he finds Shmuel, a boy from the other side of the fence. Bruno and Shmuel become friends, and from this friendship Bruno starts to discover what is really going on around him.

This is easily the saddest book I have read this year and what made it worse was the innocence of the two boys who really didn't understand the meaning behind the concentration camp or why they were supposed to be enemies. Throughout the book you encounter little hints of what goes on at the other side and how the Jews were treated, which the nine year old Bruno does not seem to apprehend but you obviously do. However nothing prepared me for the ending. Since I know that this book is geared towards young adults, I think I was naive as to how bad it could get and I was really shocked. I never thought a book could do that to me! The only thing that bothered me about this book is that sometimes the writing was mediocre. This was mostly due to long sentences that had no punctuation and never seemed to end. However, since I was so wrapped up in the story I was able to overlook this and it didn't hinder me from enjoying the book any less.

I have now watched the movie right after reading the book. I must say that I was very pleased with how true to the original story they kept and it was just as good as the book, which is rarely something I would say for movies based on books. Of course there were some minor details in the book that were missing in the movie, that always annoys me a little because it's those details that make the story more real, but I'm glad that they didn't spoil it.