Author: John Boyne
Illustrator: Oliver Jeffers
Genre: Historical Fiction
Grade level: 3+
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a tragic story about a young boy, Bruno, whose family moves to a new place with no kids around to play because his father gets a new promotion. The new house is surrounded by a tall fence. One day Bruno adventures off to find a boy, Shmuel, on the other side of the fence. They became fast friends. One day, Shmuel's father goes missing, so Bruno devises a plan to get over the fence and put on striped pajamas to match the others so that he can help Shmuel find his dad. They are forced to march into a gas chamber. After Bruno's disappearance, his father has an epiphany of what happened to him. The story ends with the allies' soldiers coming to thee camp and making the father go with them.
Illustrations in this book are done by acclaimed artist Oliver Jeffers. This is a deluxe illustrated edition. The illustrations within the book are very powerful and moving. They are done in a cartoon style, which confused me at first because of the seriousness of this book's message, but the illustrations actually promote the message of the book.
The story and message of this book are very impacting on any reader who understands this story, no matter their age. I would suggest not letting children under the age of nine read it because it is an extremely disheartening story that also takes some understanding of the context.
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