What exactly was the difference? He wondered to himself. And who decided which people wore the striped pajamas and which people wore the uniforms?”
― John Boyne, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Bruno is a young boy in Germany who is not happy to find out his family is moving from Berlin. His father is a Nazi commandant and has received a new position. When he asks where they are moving to, Bruno understands they are moving to Out-With. The actual location is Auschwitz, where his father will be in charge of the prison camp. Bruno does not like his new home. He misses his friends, is not allowed to explore, and doesn’t understand why he cannot play with the children on the other side of the fence who are wearing the same striped pajamas. He later realizes it is not just children wearing the pajamas, but men as well. Bruno eventually decides to explore and meets a boy named Shmuel. They become friends as they meet often by the fence but neither of them has any idea of the tragic consequences of their friendship.

This is a powerful book that introduces the holocaust in a way that doesn’t overwhelm young readers. It may take them a bit to understand what happens in the end since it is not graphic or spelled out. When this book first came out, I meant to read it and then never did. In 2023, John Boyne published a second novel All the Broken Places, that features Bruno’s sister and tells her life story. It is not a children’s book but very much geared towards adults. It is a powerful story but does feature quite a bit of language, domestic abuse, and other difficult subjects. As I started reading All the Broken Places, I remembered about The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and read it afterwards so I would know the full story of Bruno. If you want to read both books, I recommend reading them in the published order instead of backwards like I did!

Content Advisory: Antisemitism, holocaust, violence

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