John Boyne’s book, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, is a book about a young boy named Bruno. The young man moves with his family to Auschwitz, a move he laments because he leaves his friends behind. Bruno meets a new friend, Shmuel, who like him, does not know he is in a death camp because of being Jewish. One day, Shmuel’s father goes on ‘a march,’ to the gas chambers and does not comeback. Bruno puts on striped pajamas and creeps into the camp to help Shmuel find his father. They follow a march to the chambers, and both die holding hands. Upon the understanding of his son’s death, Bruno’s father is overwhelmed. Having cost him his son, he does not care about his job anymore and even gives up without a fight when the Red Army comes.
I had a positive attitude towards this book because it showed how the naïve nature of a child can be valuable. Bruno and Shmuel are close friends even though their ethnic backgrounds are a cause for conflict. In my opinion, the author intended to show that if the Germans had taken a more inviting path like these two children, the bloodshed would have been avoided, and all races would co-exist in peace.
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Though the story is touching, and the author intended to bring to light the negative impact of the Holocaust period, I did not like the plot as the possibility of the friendship between Bruno and Shmuel was unlikely to exist. Shmuel was inside a death camp, and if Bruno could sneak in unnoticed, Shmuel could have easily escaped the camp. For the friendship to continue without anybody knowing, the guard unit in the death camp would have to be careless. Furthermore, the possibility of Shmuel being unaware of the events going on in the death camp for him to act so ignorantly is impossible. Lastly, Shmuel’s father could not have gone to face his death without saying goodbye to his son.
I found the book easy to read as the vocabulary and language use is standard. It was easy to understand without much difficulty. I would recommend the book to a classmate or friend because though the plot has some errors, the message it brings forth has teachings that are valid even in ordinary day society.
