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EAN: 9781849920438
Format: Paperback
Published: 29 Apr 2010
Other Editions:
Hardback, CD, Paperback, ebook
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.
What the critics say
This novel is a fine addition to a once taboo area of history, at least where children's literature is concerned. It provides an account of a dreadful episode short on actual horror but packed with overtones that remain in the imagination. Plainly and sometimes archly written, it stays just ahead of its readers before delivering its killer punch in the final pages.
- Nick Tucker, Independent
The great strength of Bruno's narrative is the way it is mired in the parochial preoccupations of a nine-year-old... for the younger reader, the slow revelation of detail becomes an education in real time of the horrors of 'Out-With', known to the grown-ups as Auschwitz.... The Boy in Striped Pyjamas is a small wonder of a book. Bruno's education is conducted slowly, through a series of fleeting social encounters rather than by plunging him into a nightmare landscape.
- The Guardian
An extraordinary tale of friendship and the horrors of war seen through the eyes of two young boys, it's stirring stuff. Raw literary talent at its best. More please!
- Irish Independent
'Quite impossible to put down, this is the rare kind of book that doesn’t leave your head for days. Word of mouth should be strong and this has the potential to cross over to an adult audience. A unique and captivating novel, which I believe deserves huge success'
- Becky Stradwick, Borders, The Bookseller
A memorable and moving story, with a child's view of a frightening adult world.
- Oxford Times
Editor's Comments
When I first read this novel, I was left breathtaken. It had a deceptive beginning - simple, charming, innocent; a story told by a naive eight-year-old boy, set in Berlin some time ago. But slowly, inch by inch, as realisation of what the book was really about began to dawn on me, it felt as though my heart was being squeezed. Pure and simple, an exploration of one of the world's most terrible times seen through the eyes of a child, this book's emotion has a great power, and one that I will never forget. Novels like these deserve to be around forever - and I am absolutely convinced that BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS will become a classic.