The boy in the striped pyjamas is a novel written by John Boyne in 2006. As it’s had a great success, they made a film of it in 2008. It’s been the best selling book several times in countries like Spain, the UK, Ireland and Australia.
The story is about Bruno, a German nine-year-old boy. It happens in the time period of the Second World War. His father is an important Nazi general that is moved to Auzwitz next to the concentration camp to work there. Bruno is really bored as his sister doesn’t play with him and as he misses his friends because there aren’t any children there. But, one day, Bruno sees some people in striped pyjamas and there are children among them too! He asks his family about them but he doesn´t recieve any satisfactory answers, only an order: he must not go there. But Bruno doesn’t obey his parents. After all-he thinks- what harm can he do? So he goes exploring and finds a friend. He’s called Shmuel and he wears a striped pyjamas. The problem is that there is a wire fence between them as Shmuel lives inside. A great bond of friendship grows between them as Bruno goes there every day and gives him food. But Shmuel’s father disapperars so when he asks Bruno to help him find his father Bruno doesn’t hesitate and goes under the wire.
This book is a sad combination of violence and friendship. You will be hooked until the very last page of this mesmerizing story and it’s recommended from thirteen years to beyond but anyone with a bit of interest can appreciate this book’s great value. Unlike other stories of this kind it treats this horrible topic differently, more delicately without big quantities of fiction but making important things that have to be. It gives an image of the WW2; especially of concentration camps but from the point of view of an innocent child who doesn´t realise what’s really going on around him. A normal child with a normal child’s concerns that will be taken without notice by the hands of a cruel world.
By: Eva Nuño, Paula Arratibel and Sofia Gomezllata
