I’ve heard lots about this book in the recent past, and also about the associated film. I was grateful to be sent a copy for review from Random House Children’s books, and decided that we would use it as our first family book club book, with as many as possible of us reading it, then having a discussion around it.
Warning. This post will include spoilers. If you don’t want to know about it, stop reading now. I’m even including a more tag, so that you don’t read on inadvertantly.
First of all, my point of view. It’s a well written book, and set in the second world war in Germany, interestingly the main characters are a Nazi family. I can’t think of another children’s book with that set up, though I daresay there must be some. There are some intriguing mechanisms to hide from readers what might be coming up, including the lead character, 9 year old Bruno, mispronouncing various words, like Fury and Out-with. The ending is abrupt and shocking, though not graphically upsetting. It did cause tears from both my children though, and gave rise to lots of discussion about what happened, why it happened, could it happen now and so on.
I would be slightly concerned about the possibly emotional impact on children of reading this in a class environment – I’d be very interested to hear from any teachers who have used it as a class text. Certainly both my kids needed lots of time to process and quite a bit of cuddling when they were done 🙁
From the children’s point of view. Big thought it was a bit slow to get going, improved throughout, and then threw it across the room, declared it horrid and asked why anyone would write anything like that when she got to the end. She had enough contextual knowledge from other reading (she is just 12) to know what was supposed to have happened, and she was very very unhappy about it. (Hints and tricks. Make sure your child is not reading this just before bedtime. I hadn’t realised she was 🙁 )
Small thought it was very slow to get going, said the only reason he read in few sessions during the middle was to get it over with (although I suspect he was actually quite enjoying it) and didn’t get the end. He’s not quite 9 – I’m aware on the back of the book it says this isn’t a book for 9 years olds, but I made a judgement call that he would cope. Once I explained to him what had happened he was distraught, but again, it has allowed us to springboard into some very interesting and worthwhile discussions.
If you are considering this for your child, read it first. And if your child brings it home from school, steal it and read it – you need to be prepared. I am sure there will be children who just cope, but my two aren’t among that number, and I’d be concerned about children without a prepared environment.
I think it’s a book worthy of reading – I think that 12 up is probably about the right age, but the child needs to have a bit of background about WWII and the holocaust to get the full experience. Big had read Anne Frank and a number of other fictional accounts so she knew enough, Small hadn’t.
The emotional impact of the book did mean we couldn’t discuss the literary devices in use, which I thought was a shame in some ways, but we may be able to return to those in future. And it’s given us a great grounding for further work on the war and political history of the last century or so.
All in all, highly recommended, but with the caveat read it yourself before the children get hold of it. And I’m told that the film is even more traumatic, so for the time being, I’m steering clear.
Disclosure – this book was sent to us free for the purposes of review, and the link above is an affiliate link.
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