Written by John Boyne
Random House Children's Books 2006
215 pages
Historical Fiction
This story takes place in Berlin in 1942 during the period of the Holocaust. It is about a boy named Bruno who comes home one day to find that his father has gotten a promotion and their family is moving. Bruno's father was an SS officer in the Nazi Army. They move to a place where there is not much around and there is no one for Bruno to play with. The place they move to is actually the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. He immediately notices a long fence that goes on for miles and miles. He soon meets a boy who lives with the other strange looking people on the other side of the fence who's name is Shmuel. The boys become friends and meet in the same spot every day. One day Bruno puts on a pair of stripped pajamas and goes through the fence to help his friend find his father and the boys end up in a march. They did not know where the march was leading and end up in the gas chambers. Bruno's family search but could never find him until his father puts the pieces together a year later and figures out what happened. This sad story shows what life was like during this dark time in history.
This book contains no illustrations. It contains twenty chapters throughout its 215 pages. This book is most appropriate for ages 12 and up. The cover has stripes similar to the ones that the prisoners in the concentration camps wore. This book has not received any awards.
One activity that your class could do with this story would be make a prediction about the story and what they think it will be about. They could write a paragraph about their predictions and then after finishing the book write another paragraph comparing what they learned to their predictions. to create a PowerPoint or presentation of some kind with facts about the Holocaust or something that has to do with the Holocaust. Finally, you could split your class up into groups and get them to make their own scene or story about the holocaust and act out events or make up their own.
One activity that your class could do with this story would be make a prediction about the story and what they think it will be about. They could write a paragraph about their predictions and then after finishing the book write another paragraph comparing what they learned to their predictions. to create a PowerPoint or presentation of some kind with facts about the Holocaust or something that has to do with the Holocaust. Finally, you could split your class up into groups and get them to make their own scene or story about the holocaust and act out events or make up their own.
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