Irish writer John Boyne's fourth novel is the first he has written for children. It's a touching tale of an odd friendship between two boys in horrendous circumstances and a reminder of man's capacity for inhumanity.

There is something awkward about the way Boyne manages to disguise, and then to disclose, the historical context. His protagonist is Bruno, a 9-year-old whose family moves abruptly from a big house in Berlin to a desolate, faraway place whose name Bruno hears as “Out-With.”

I was sitting at the very back row of Cineworld, Dublin screen nine and struggling with my tears. I thought it would be extremely embarrassing if people see tears in my eyes. But I was so wrong! The lady sitting beside me was crying like anything. (Smells_Like_Cheese, 2008)

[Director] Mark Herman knows how to milk the melodrama from every scene, but viewers may feel a little icky about the experience. (Sartin, 2011)

THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS, based on John Boyne's novel, is a quietly effective, tastefully crafted, and ultimately devastating portrait of the Holocaust as seen through one boy's eyes.

A review of Mark Herman's film The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008). Based on a book by John Boyne.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas continues a literary tradition of exploring the evils of the Holocaust through the eyes of a child. In the same vein as Jerry Spinelli's Milkweed, this novel contrasts the dichotomy of man's inhumanity to man with man's capacity to care and love.

When boundaries like social, cultural physical and separations constrained Bruno’s life, it never prevented him from forming a forbidden friendship.