General information
- Title: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
- Author: John Boyne
- Year of publishing:
- First published : 2006
- My edition : 2008

Explaining the title
When Bruno is moved to Out-With, he sees a strange shape behind a fence close to his house. While he comes closer, he can see it’s a boy. A boy in a striped pyjamas. This boy will later be his friend Shmuel.

The author
John Boyne was born in Dublin in 1971. He studied English Literature at Trinity College Dublin, and creative writing at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, where he won the Curtis Brown prize.
First, his work was mostly of short stories. His first story, The Entertainments Jar, was nominated for the Hennessy Literary Award in Ireland.

John wrote nine novels and won for almost every book an award.
His most known roman, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, was made into a award-winning film. The novel itself won two Irish Book Awards, the Bisto Book of the Year, and was nominated or won a lot of international awards. John’s novels are published in 43 languages. A new children’s book will be published in September 2012.
John is also a journalist and critic

Perspective
The story is told in the first person. You only read what Bruno’s thoughts are. Concerning the thoughts of other characters is not told. Only when Bruno is with them, you know what they’re doing.
Everything is told from Bruno’s perspective and objective.

Genre
This book is a historical novel. The story is based on a historical event: Second World War, Auschwitz, Poland.

Theme
The theme of this book is friendship in war. Bruno becomes best friends with Shmuel, despite the big difference between them: Shmuel is a Jew and lives in Poland. He’s used to live with halmost ten people in one house, you can call him poor. Bruno is a not-Jew and used to live in a five floor-counting villa. Bruno is a little spoiled.
The lesson for me is that you can be friends with anyone, poor, rich, ugly, beautiful, what ever. You shouldn’t only look at someone’s appearance, you should neither look to the most important: the inside. Even in bad times, like war or emergency, can the people be gently and will be your best friends.


Main characters
Bruno: Bruno is a nine year old son of the commander in the German army. His father is his model, and he looks up to his father. He loves his family, but dislikes his sister Gretel. Bruno has brown hair and always dressed well. He neither likes to explore things and play with his friends. This will change when he moves to Poland with his family. There’s nobody to play with, so he thinks a lot of the changed things. Bruno wishes all the goods for everyone, but this can result in trouble:
“ ’Did you steal something from that fridge?’ ‘No sir. He gave it to me, ‘sais Shmuel, tears welling up in his eyes as he threw a sideways glance at Bruno. ‘He’s my friend, ‘ he added. (…) ‘Do you know this boy?’ repeated Kotler in a louder voice. ‘Why does he say you’re his friend?’ ‘I’ve never spoken to him, ‘said Bruno immediatly. ‘I’ve never seen him before in my life. I don’t know him.’ “
In this part, Shmuel is washing the glasses in Bruno’s kitchen, and Bruno wants to share a piece of chicken with him. Lieutenant Kotler has seen this and became very angry. With doing this, Bruno wants to do something good for Shmuel, but caused trouble for both of them. By saying ‘I’ve never seen him before in my life…’ , he caused a fight with Shmuel: Shmuel is a little angry about this.
Because Bruno changes in the course of the story, he’s a round character.

Shmuel: Shmuel is Bruno’s Jewish friend at Out-With. He lives at the “field” (concentrationcamp) behind Bruno’s house. Shmuel has almost the same appearance as Bruno, but Shmuel’s skin is very grey and he has a bald head. He also wears the striped pyjamas. Shmuel lost all his relatives, so he’s sitting alone near the fence, where he had met Bruno.
Shmuel is very obedient and withdraw, because if he does something wrong, the soldiers are getting mad, they will hit him.
Shmuel is a flat charactar, he doesn’t change.

Gretel: Gretel is Bruno’s twelve year old sister. Bruno calls her a Hopless Case. She thinks Bruno is a baby and that Bruno is very stupid. But because she is older than Bruno is, she understand a lot more than Bruno does. Gretel is in love with Lieutenant Kotler, the eighteen year old soldier who comes a lot at Bruno’s house. Lieutenant Kotler doesn’t see Gretel as his next girlfriend, but he thinks she is an amusing girl.
Gretel is a round character, she changes her behaviour as soon as she turns on thirteen: she dismisses all her dolls and doesn’t bother Bruno anymore.


Father: Father is commander at Out-With / Auschwitz. He has authority and when he speaks, everyone is quiet and no one is allowed to interrupt him. He’s always working in his office, what is ‘Out Of Bounds At All Times And No Exceptions’. Father is a good man, he gave Maria’s mother work, and now Maria is working for him either.
Father is a flat character.

Mother: Mother is very considerate. She loves her family very much, but gets evil when her children are in a bad environment. She wants the best for her family. First, she chooses to be at Out-With, because of father’s job. In the long run, she misses everything in Berlin, and sees how unhappy her children are at Out-With, she insists they go back to Berlin.
Mother is a flat character too.

Setting and time
The setting of this novel is in Germany and Auschwitz, Poland. The time is about 1940/1945, World War Two. You can see this on:
- the signs on page 127.
- “ Shmuel stared at him for a moment and opened his mouth and close dit twice, as if he was considering his words carefully. ‘But this is Poland,’ he said finally. (…)
‘And I don’t think I’d ever been to Poland before I came here, ‘said Bruno, which was true because he hadn’t. ‘That is, if this really is Poland. ‘ ‘I’m sure it is, ‘ said Shmuel quietly. ‘Altough it’s not a very nice part of it.’” (page 112)
- They are talking about ‘the Fury’ , this is meant Hitler.


Summary
1. When Bruno came home he saw the maid were putting his belongings into boxes. Bruno’s mother explained that they had to move because father’s new job.
2. Bruno’s new house was in the middle of nowhere. He saw no houses or other boys or children to play with. Bruno tried to explore the house, but there was nothing to explore in their new house.
3. Gretel explained Bruno the name of the new house, called Out-With. Bruno missed their old house and friends very much. Bruno showed Gretel also the people he could see from his bedroom.
4. They were wondering what people they saw. Bruno thought it were people from another town.
5. Bruno asked his father why they had to leave their old house and what kind of people he saw from his bedroomwindow. His father told him he was sent by the Fury. The people Bruno saw weren’t really people and it had nothing to do with him.
6. Bruno asked Maria about their new house. He still didn’t liked it at all. Maria told him father helped Maria’s mother and Maria to give them a job.
7. Bruno was swinging in a tree and fell off. Pavel, the cook, cleaned his wound and told Bruno he was a doctor. When mother came home, she told Pavel that he had to say to fathert hat mother had cleaned up the wound.
8. Bruno thought about how he loves his grandparents. He remembered how grandmother had an argument with his father about being a soldier.
9. Bruno remembered that he used to joy exploration. He found a fence.
10. Behind the fence Bruno’d discovered, he saw a dot that became a speck that became a blob that became a figure that became a boy. They got talking and discovered they were born on the same day.

11. Bruno was thinking about the night that the Fury came for dinner. Bruno thinks the Fury is the rudest person ever.
12. Shmuel and Bruno talked about their old lives. Shmuel told how he got to Out-With.
13. Lieutenant Kotlerhad dinner at Bruno’s family.
14. Bruno couldn’t see Shmuel because of the rain. In a conversation with Gretel he lied that he had an imaginary friend.
15. Shmuel had to wash glasses in Bruno’s kitchen. Bruno want to share a part of chicken with Shmuel, but Lieutenant Kotler saw this. Shmuel said Bruno gave it to him and that Bruno is his friend. Bruno said he’d never seen Shmuel. Kotler became very angry and hit Shmuel.
16. Grandmother died and Bruno went back to Berlin for a weekend. He asked Gretel why he wasn’t allowed to go to the other side of the fence. Gretel explains they’re Jewish and that they don’t like Jews. Gretel and Bruno had lices, so Bruno had to shave his hair. Now he and Shmuel were almost twins.
17. Mother thought Out-With wasn’t a good place for children to grow up, so they were leaving Out-With and went back to their old home in Berlin. Bruno were very sad about this, because he had to miss Shmuel.
18. Bruno told Shmuel he had to leave. Shmuel were very sad because he lost his father. Bruno and Shmuel made a plan that Shmuel would bring striped pyjamas the other day, so Bruno could search for Shmuel’s father.
19. Bruno pulled the pyjamas and went to Shmuel’s side of the fence. Bruno didn’t like it there at all, but when he wanted to go back, they had to go on a march and they had to go in a room. Bruno said Shmuel was his best friend. At the time Shmuel opened his mouth, Bruno didn’t heard it because there was a loud noise from the door, which was closed. Bruno held Shmuel’s hand while there was the chaos on the dark room.
20. Bruno was missed. Father looked for him trough the whole house. A villager found Bruno’s clothes near the fence Bruno used to meet Shmuel. Gretel and mother returned to Berlin, but either there wasn’t Bruno. After a year father went back to the fence and discovered Bruno climbed to the other side. He immediatly understood what happened to Bruno.


Personal opinion
I love the book. I’ve either seen the movie, and I really wanted to read the book. It’s a very good story, you see war trough the eyes of a Nazi son. World War Two interests me a lot, because of the story of Anne Frank. It’s because she had the same age as I have.
Especially this story grabs me because the main person is a little boy, whom has no experiences of war, and doesn’t know what happen.
I would recommend this novel, because of it’s sweeping story.