Buy Book "A boy in striped pajamas" in Ukrainian

Bruno, a little German boy, and his family are moving to a new apartment. Before they lived in a luxurious 5-storey building where the boy could explore everything around him, but now Bruno is just bored in his new home. Through his window, he discovers the existence of a barbed wire fence. Bruno sees men and children dressed in identical striped pajamas on the other side. The boy’s sister calls these people Jews and says that they should be hated. By the way, their father is the commandant of the concentration camp. Despite this, Bruno makes a friend named Shmul, a boy in striped pajamas. They even share a birthday on the same day. Bruno brings food to the boy behind the barbed wire and talks to him almost every day. He is even a little jealous that Shmuel has many friends in the concentration camp.

The book makes you think about the horrors that took place in concentration camps during World War II. Written in simple language, it seems as if it is really a child’s story (it is Bruno who narrates the story).

The book is small in size, but huge in its significance.

It is a very touching and at the same time extremely difficult story. Difficult times of persecution and hardship. Concentration camps, genocide and a lot of grief.

The story is told through the eyes of a nine-year-old boy, Bruno. In search of friends in a new place, the boy develops an extremely dangerous friendship with a boy from a concentration camp. And from this vantage point, it is not clear who to feel more sorry for, those behind the fence or in front of it?

This book covers a very hard time, and when children are involved, it gets even harder.

I was thrilled with the book, but tears were pouring down. The story was very heartwarming, but it is definitely not for the faint of heart.

These books should be read to see and know different sides of life. After all, he who has no past, no future…

There is a little bit of naivety or the boy is too much shielded from the truth of life. Because he doesn’t understand that there’s a war going on… Although…

The book is very heavy emotionally and you have to take that fact into account when reading.

J. Boyne’s novel The Boy in the Striped Pajamas tells the story of a family that is forced to move from Berlin to the countryside because of the father’s job. Ten-year-old Bruno, who has friends and a whole life in the capital, suffers especially from this. In the new place, he has no one to make friends with, even his older sister, with whom they used to get along well, has drifted away from the boy in an attempt to charm one of his father’s subordinates. So Bruno just wanders around the neighborhood until he comes across his peer Schmuel. Even the thorny fence that separates the boys does not prevent them from communicating. But Bruno and Shmuel have already figured out a way to play together – to do this, Bruno has to get behind the barbed wire, dressed in striped “pajamas” like those worn by Shmuel and other people who live behind the fence…

For me personally, this book is about the fact that the evil done to someone will definitely come back as a boomerang to the one who did it. Yes, perhaps this book is not a literary masterpiece, but it definitely deserves to be read, especially since it is not very long.

The idea of the book itself is good, but its execution is rather unclear. The lack of character development and the lack of logic in the actions of the characters leave mixed impressions of the book. Most questions arise about the main character. Bruno was nine years old, but he is too stupid and naive for his age. It’s hard to believe that at a time when Hitler was almost a hero for many Germans, and children were taught to be Nazis from childhood, Bruno doesn’t know who Hitler is or that there is a war going on, doesn’t know why Germans hate Jews (he doesn’t even know that Jews exist), he doesn’t know that his family moved from Berlin to a house near the Auschwitz concentration camp… Okay, we can write this off as overprotective parenting, although given who Bruno’s father was, I don’t think he would have been able to pull off his “correct ideological upbringing.” Also, our Bruno reacts unclearly to some everyday things – he cannot distinguish between right and wrong. If Bruno was five years old or mentally retarded, I would have believed in his behavior, attributed it to childish naivety and spontaneity, but here… a facepalm, in short.

I will not retell the plot – many people know it already. The ending of the story turned out to be scary and cruel, it reminds us once again that every evil will have to be paid for, nothing goes unpunished, and children often pay for the sins of their parents.

Is the ending fair? It’s hard to say, but in my opinion, it is quite natural and expected.

The story of the boy Bruno is quite tragic and touching, but you expect a more careful attitude to real facts and more thoughtful characters and logic in the actions of the characters.

I think this story is worth reading if only to form your own opinion about it.

The book tells us a story in which the protagonist, nine-year-old Bruno, together with his parents and sister, moves from his native Berlin to a new place of residence, where his father got a government job.

Bruno notices that everything is completely different in his new home, he doesn’t like the lack of convenient infrastructure there (as in Berlin), and later Bruno starts to miss his friends. The window of the protagonist’s room offers a view of incomprehensible small buildings fenced with a net and inhabited by people in “striped pajamas.”

Over time, Bruno, who is a fan of the idea of “research,” discovers something new: on the other side of the fence, a boy named Shmul sits alone. Bruno has the chance to meet him and spend a long time talking and having fun. Despite this, the boys are separated by a barbed wire fence, but it doesn’t matter to Bruno, because now he has found a friend.

For me, the paradox in the novel was that the protagonist did not realize that there was a war going on-he did not know who the Jews were or even where Poland was located, yet his father held a high government position, and Bruno even met Hitler at one point. Perhaps this is a subtle move by the author, who wanted to portray a child’s brightness, which, not knowing the bitter fates of the world, recognizes only good, or perhaps it is some other idea of the author that I cannot yet define for myself. Or maybe it’s just an ill-conceived part of the work. For this, I give it a B.

In general, the work is very easy to read, a big plus for such a high-quality translation. It is interesting to read other works by this author to compare them with The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, so I am waiting for new Ukrainian translations by John Boyne.