Teacher Guide

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas Lesson Plan

Introduction to The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

When The Boy in the Striped Pajamas was published in 2006, it received rave reviews and was almost immediately marked as a “classic” in children’s literature. It tells the story of Bruno, an innocent and naïve nine-year-old German boy who has to move away from his home in Berlin to the area near a concentration camp where his father is the Commandant. Throughout the novel, Bruno fails to understand the horrors of the concentration camp, even after he meets, talks through the barbed-wire fence to, and becomes close friends with Shmuel, a Jewish boy who lives in the camp. Ultimately, through his lack of understanding and a series of strange choices characteristic of nine-year-old boys,...

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