What readers think of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, plus links to write your own review.

The book is good .

It really annoyed me that this book was so historically inaccurate. I felt that it almost makes light of the Holocaust. How does is it that a small boy in a prison could sit by an unguarded fence for a year and not attempt to escape, but instead let his friend into the prison. How is it that neither of these boys figure out what is going on. I mean the smell of burning bodies everyday would have been a big clue. Oh yeah, and how did a small child make it through the selection process in the first place? Almost all children were gassed on arrival by 1943. There are so many good books to read to explain the Holocaust to children. I'm sorry to see that so many kids are wasting their time on this book. A small amount of research would have made this a better book. But the author seems unwilling to let facts get in the way of his story.

This book is a well-meaning failure that could be thus summarized:

Autistic German boy -son of Nazi officer- befriends Polish Jew boy -also suffering from autism- at concentration camp.

Bruno doesn't know that his father is in the army and his country at war. Schmuel doesn't realize he is a prisoner, but survives in the camp for one year with nothing to do all day long. Give me a break!

If you see the homonymous film after reading the book, you'll notice the significant changes continuously introduced in the script to make the story (just barely) plausible.

Don't lose your time reading this utter nonsense.

Go get a DVD of Roberto Benini's "Life is Beautiful" instead. It will make you laugh and cry at the same time with a story of love and desperate wit.

Benini's wonderful fable ultimately treats the Holocaust in a dignified manner -- while Boyne's novella is stripped of all dignity.