Boy in the striped pyjamas

[Tomselleckhaskindeyes]

I’ll admit I have not read the book but I am trying to find something for my children to read that is thought provoking. They know about the Holocaust in general terms but not the horrible details. What age group would be best for this book?

The Lovely Bones is another brilliant book portraying a difficult subject. I read it as a young child (9-10) and it has always stuck with me how kind it is in portraying a truly awful subject. It explained complex issues in a very child friendly way. Skip the film though, that was awful!

The author tweeted recently that he'd had a terrible year and he'd 'lost [his] husband'. Cue outpouring of sympathy and people sharing stories of their spouses dying and how they got through it.

I googled it and his husband had left him. Disingenuous twat. He never clarified but he accepted and thanked people for their comments individually whilst clearly knowing what they thought had happened. He deleted the tweet later. He's attention-seeking and selfish.

Thank you for your replies. I used to be a prolific reader when I was young but due to issues with concentration I’m not as up on things. I didn’t realise how problematic this book was but I suppose if you are reading it from a critical standpoint then you still learning an awful lot. That would be for a much older child.

Is the lovely bones where the narrator/child was abducted?

Must read the book but seen the film and I was sobbing at the end 😢

I have to agree with others about TBITSP - I think it's quite a dangerous book, aimed as it is at children whose critical faculties won't be fully developed.

Holocaust fiction in general makes me uneasy, unless it's a fictionalised account of someone's lived experience or the handed-down experience of someone who was actually there. I don't think it's a subject that should be used as entertainment or exploited for commercial gain by those who didn't live through it.

I agree with a pp that Anne Frank's diary would be a good choice, depending on how old the children are.

@Tomselleckhaskindeyes child was abducted and raped then murdered. Sounds horrific but portrayed very carefully. Most of the story focuses on seeing people's lives move on afterwards, family and the perpetrator and ultimately justice though many years later.

@Tomselleckhaskindeyes child was abducted and raped then murdered. Sounds horrific but portrayed very carefully. Most of the story focuses on seeing people's lives move on afterwards, family and the perpetrator and ultimately justice though many years later.

The Silver Sword by Ian Serallier is a good, thought provoking book for kids around the 10 mark.

And Room. DD2 read that around the same age I think.

The Machine Gunners or Goodnight Mister Tom

Goodnight mr Tom is one of my favourite books. It’s read that at about 10. My ten year old just didn’t like it. I read it at school at about 13/14 and we were all in tears reading it.

I have read lovely bones as an adult so it isn’t something that I would contemplate but as an adult i think you realise the full horror of an event and maybe add your own interpretation.

Room is so not appropriate for a 9 year old!

What is room about?

Room is about a girl who is kidnapped and forced to have sex with her kidnapper and then kept locked in a dungeon room with the child she becomes pregnant with.

I thought Room was crap!

Please don't read this book if you want to learn about the holocaust. It really does encourage sympathy with the perpetrators rather than the victims. Anne Franks' diary is such a fantastic read. For a girl of her age her writing is witty, articulate and poignant. I wish English departments would stop using the Boy in the Striped PJs a class reader - there are so many superb resources out there. I would also recommend Nicholas Winton's story. Look on You Tube for videos about him - such a modest man who saved so many lives.

I strongly disliked this book, it felt exploitative of the holocaust.

Awful book as PP have said.

Well will not bother with it then but thank you for pointing me to those articles.

I remember reading a book about the nazi officers wife about a Jewish woman who hid in plain sight and the terror she faced everyday.

I'm another who really doesn't like TBITSP. It feels disrespectful to be writing about imaginary victims of the holocaust when there are millions of real ones whose stories haven't been told.

Here is another excellent book, more so as it's a true story of survival as a child:

www.amazon.co.uk/Lucky-Child-Memoir-Surviving-Auschwitz/dp/1781254001/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=lucky+child+book&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1581621519&sr=8-3

That is an inspirational book so think I may look at that.