The Boy In The Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

The Boy In The Striped Pajamas by John Boyne was made into a movie in 2008 and it’s no wonder. This fable of an innocent nine year old boy living in 1942 Germany brings us on an emotional journey.

The boy’s family is moving to a place he’s never heard. As he tries to understand meanings to new words he hears he gets it all wrong. He hears his dad’s being sent by the ‘”Fury” to live in “Out-With” and he fails to understand those names, which  sound straight from a fantasy novel as the true terms Fuhrer and Auschwitz. For the adult reader, the truth immediately sinks in. I’m not sure soon a younger reader would grasp the connection.

It’s especially haunting to experience this world through the eyes of a naive boy who focuses on his own lonliness and doesn’t realize the true horror in his new friend’s life on the other side of the fence.

Like Reading A Novel and Scouring An Eccentric Ancestor’s Scrapbook

Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs is a quirky combination of reading a novel and scouring an eccentric ancestor’s scrapbook. So inventive, I wish I would have thunk it first. Yet I didn’t and I never would have been able to weave in such an eerie touching tale, which jumps between modern-day and WWII.

I chose it from the library for the cover alone. Who was this young waif and why was she hovering above the ground? Reading along and referencing the photos, it reminded me of a chapter book for the senior set. Why don’t all books have illustrations, photos and references? Now I’m craving the extra sensory details.

Brilliant Recreation Of A Teen’s World War II Journey

Between Shades Of Gray by Ruta Sepetys sparks a journey back into a darker time when millions were deported and died under Stalin’s regime. She re-created in rich palette a coming of age tale underneath the shadow of World War II.

Fifteen-year-old Lina will steal your heart as she struggles to retain her strength, love and hope each day.  The novel passes between memories of happier times and her present full of depravity and personal courage.

Lina doesn’t discard her love of art. She risks much to keep drawing and documenting the events that unfold around her.  Her journey to Siberia polishes a maturity and a deeper compassion within this life-like character. This book could on the shelf beside The Diary of Anne Frank and The Boy In The Striped Pajamas bridging the gap between truth and fiction.