“Once”, “Then” and “Now” vs “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”

[mab2701]

This summer i’m going to be helping out at the local library with the young adult reading group so I thought I should read a bunch of young adult novels so that I knew what to recommend. Who am I kidding? I read a heap of young novels anyway it’s just that I know I have a better excuse for it. I saw Boy in the Striped Pyjamas last year at the

Comments

[charis_kalos]

Hmmm, I haven't read any of these, and it sounds like I should at the very least read the Morris Gleitzman trilogy.

After Felix who grew and learnt and lost his innocence Bruno is hard to take.

But he might not be inaccurate. My nephew is eight and that's still very young and naive. And if Bruno is being carefully and deliberately protected from what's going on around him, he could be unaware of it.Not sure. I might have to read this, too.

At the moment I'm rereading Harry Potter to get ready for the movie next week, so I've got the Nazis as Dark Wizards thing happening in my head!

[mab2701]

I'd definitely reccomend the Morris Gleitzman trilogy. It's brilliantly written and sad and horrible and amazing and funny all at once.

I'd thought about Bruno being sheltered but it starts off with him in Berlin and at one stage Hitler comes to dinner and speaks with him I found it harder to believe that someone, even a child, could be that oblivious to a war going on around him. He sees Jews being forced onto trains and just thinks they are silly for not getting on the train that he's on and considering his house is attached to Auschwitz where he'd be able to smell the bodies and the furnaces I just found it hard to believe that that much could be sheltered from him.

Nazis as dark wizards always connects in my head. Although David Thewlis actually played Bruno's father in the Striped Pyjamas movie so it freaked me out more that the good wizards were also Nazis.

[charis_kalos]

Although David Thewlis actually played Bruno's father in the Striped Pyjamas movie so it freaked me out more that the good wizards were also Nazis.

Note to self: don't watch the movie. That would definitely freak me out, too.

[mab2701]

What made it worse is he's always so good with his own child that you keep forgetting he's supposed to be the Kommandant of Auschwitz. It's just wrong.