Review by Club Member - Reshmita Gandhi

Bruno hates it when he had to move from Berlin to a new home, leaving school, leaving his three best friends, his grandparents and his big house at Berlin. The new house is called the Out-with or that’s what his sister Gretel said. Out-with is smaller than his house in Berlin, there were no kids his age to play with, there were no cafes around, no vegetable and fruit shops, it was as if they were out in the middle of nowhere. Couple of days before the move, Bruno met the Fury because of whom Father got promoted to Commandant, whom now he hates too. On the day of his move in, Bruno finds a window in his room and wants to explore. He looks out and sees a bench inside their house and a fence that divided his house and what looked like a village to him. A weird little village with boys his age, boys elder to him, men, older men, all wearing striped pyjamas, striped shirt, striped cap and everyone was bald. Although Bruno wanted to play with the boys there, he found something very weird and sad about them. After a few weeks, Bruno sets out to explore the place. He walks along the fence for almost an hour and finds a dot that became a speck that became a blob that became a figure that became a boy. The boy was wearing the same striped pyjamas, striped shirt and striped cap, and called himself Shmuel. Bruno found it even more interesting when he got to know that Shmuel too was 9 years old just like him, and his birthday too was on April 15, 1939 just like his. Their friendship continued for months, where Bruno kept going to visit Shmuel every day. Until, Mother wanted to move back to Berlin taking only the kids, leaving behind Father. On his last walk to visit Shmuel, Bruno decides to cross the fence and help Shmuel find his father. That was the last time Bruno was ever seen. Mother and Gretel left to Berlin without Bruno. Father couldn’t stay there without knowing what had happened to Bruno and set out to find what happened.

Although it’s a small book with a simple story, the author brings in something for us to think about. It’s a book that could make you see what a 9 year old sees in this world. It could take you on a ride and make you cry at the end. What happened during the Fury`s time was wrong and so sad. Although we have come a long way from there, we are still divided from each other by a small fence. We`re all the same but there`s a fence dividing us even today. If we don’t make small changes to take the fence away, we might all be finding the history repeat itself (but maybe not to such an extent). Punishing people based on which side of the fence they were born, wasn’t right back then and it still isn’t right. If it wasn’t for Read A Kitaab`s read along, I wouldn’t have even picked this one up but I am glad I did. There is so much we can learn from history and so much we can change.