Book Review #52 - The Boy In The Striped Pajamas

Written in the voice of Bruno, a nine year-old boy whose father is promoted up the Nazi chain of command and given the position as director of Auschwitz, a Polish concentration camp, The Boy In The Striped Pajamas exposes the well-documented horrors of gas chambers, crematoriums, savage beatings and starvation through eyes that have no comprehension of this kind of evil. Instead, when he meets Schmel, a Jewish boy his own age sitting on the other side of a fence, he sees a potential playmate who, for a reason he's never quite curious enough to find the answer why, wears striped pajamas and lives behind a fence.

I wanted to like this. I tried to like this. But, every time this spoiled, ignorant and unable to remember that they lived at Auschwitz and not "Out-With" narrated in his simple-minded style, it was like fingernails on a chalkboard. Didn't the author, John Boyne, think that readers might be able to understand that Auschwitz, when spoken in the German language Boyne told us several times was being spoken, doesn't even come close to sounding like like "Out-With?" Same with Furher and "Fury." I think he may have beeing trying too hard to be clever and the result is more distracting than anything, not to mention confusing to the young audience he's supposedly writing for, as the correct titles are rarely used.

I think it has a place in young adult literature. It narrates the disconnect between the world of a privileged Nazi family and the horrors of the concentration camp with the sensitivity required for young, innocent readers. It's not really Holocast light, but it is definitely Holocaust junior. Because of this, I was less jolted by the predicatably tragic ending than I probably should have been.

A good introduction for young readers getting their first exposure to Holocaust historical fiction, but, in my opinion, there are better books available to tell this important chapter in world history.