Bruno and his family moved to Auschwitz after his father, a colonel, was given a special job by the Fuhrer. As soon as they arrive in their new house, Bruno feels alone and bored. So to entertain himself, he decides to venture around in the field nearby. In his search for discovery, he sees a boy by a fence who is wearing an outfit which resembles pyjamas. Excited, Bruno approaches him and introduces himself to the boy who goes by the name of Shmuel. There starts their friendship.

This book has many issues. And that is why it was painful to go through it. Let’s start with the plausibility of the story.  Bruno is set to be 9 years old, he is not aware of what is happening in his country, he does not know who the Jews are, who the Fuhrer is, or what his father does. I liked how assertive he was at first, but we then quickly realised that he was oblivious to everything. I would have been able to understand this narrative better if  it had been brought to my attention that his parents shielded him on purpose to protect him from the horrific situation they are part of. But that is not the case. As a result of that, he comes across as irritating and egocentric. He keeps complaining in front of a boy who, he notices, looks sad but never asks why? Bruno does not ask questions. And it is hard to believe that a boy his age lacks curiosity. My 5-years-old nephew observes and asks questions upon questions when things look odd to him. In the book, Bruno assumes. That is what he does. He assumes when he sees the face of Shmuel all beaten up that he must have fallen off a bicycle. What bicycle the reader may ask? Did he ever see Shmuel with one or hear him talk about cycling lately? He always bases his assumptions on his past experiences and his own feelings and I see what the author attempted to do. But had it been done a few times at the beginning of the book, I would have understood because it would have served to paint the character arc, but unfortunately he assumes and never asks questions during the entire book. This leads to issues tied to the characters.

We have no character development. The sister seems to be described as arrogant, the mother, depressed, the father, cold and fair. This depection is from the point of view of Bruno. They are all one dimensional. We know nothing about the boy in the title, except that he is a Jew and he comes from Poland. There is no attempt to flesh out any of the characters. We do not even know if Shmuel realises that Bruno is the son of the perpetrator of his tragedy. A year passes by and he does not let Bruno know what his current reality is. There is a character (Pavel, a Jew doctor who comes to peel off vegetables at Bruno’s) that started to be interesting and could have been used to cover more of the historical events but got only a few pages.

The timeline is not handled with tact. The story is supposed to be over the course of a year. And we are told so in a sentence! Bruno is still very naïve. So a year or not, I do not understand why there was a need to have a year passed. I am dubious as to how the author minimized the perspective, observation, understanding and the questioning ability of children of that age. Not only one time do we see an ounce of rational judgment from Bruno? The average sound 9/10 year old children are cleverer than people like the author would give them credit for.

The writing is basic. Astonishment is described by a person having their mouth making the shape of an 0 only. The ending is there to shock and it does. I was emotionally distressed after reading the last two pages. It angered me how badly children were used to depicting in horrible time of history.

I am upset about this book. If the author took children seriously, the boy’s perspectives would have been described better. I am worried about the praise this book had, but let’s say that everyone is entitled to have their opinions.

The end of my review is brushed over, but I don’t care anymore. Next