5 stars

Despite the controversy surrounding this book, I think it is very well-done. While in no way does Boyne attempt to give a real-life account of the Holocaust, he does provide an interesting prospective that gets the reader thinking.

The best way to describe this book is a children’s book for adults, although Boyne does not care to classify it as either. The story is told from a nine-year-old boy’s prospective, and while said boy is horribly ill-informed about the world around him (a fact possibly explained by his mother’s obvious ill-at-ease about the events as well as the fact that nine-year-olds are pretty self-centered and thus not generally informed about major happenings in the world. Also as Boyne has himself mentioned, when the camps were liberated, people were shocked that such a thing happened. The whole world was pretty ignorant of what was going on, so it is possible a child would also be confused.), he represents childhood innocence and ignorance. The text is simple and repetitive in order to capture Bruno’s age, but it is what lies unsaid that is the true masterpiece of the novel.

The reader has to go into this book with an understanding that Boyne is not trying to rewrite the Holocaust as a cute story of friendship. From the narrator’s point of view, the world is innocent just like him, but when the reader looks between the lines of the texts, gruesome images emerge.This is the reason the book is so ingenious. Instead of drilling in horrible images, it forces the reader to fill in the blanks on many events (where is Shmuel’s father, why is Shmuel so afraid of the soldiers, what happens in the last scene of Chapter Nineteen).

While there were a few confusing points (why does Bruno hear “Out-With” and “Fury” when he admits to only speaking German?), this was a very well-done book. It is not a serious look at the events that occurred during one of the worst offended in human history. It is a simple story that forces the reader to put the pieces together and think a little bit about the evils of humanity as well as the innocence.

If you want to learn about the Holocaust, don’t read this book. If you want a unique perspective that allows for reader participation, give this one a try.