Library Information - Reading: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

Summary: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is told from the perspective of Bruno, a nine-year-old boy forced to leave his home in Berlin to live with his family in a strange and unwelcome environment. The only friend he finds in his drab new home is a little boy, Shmuel, separated from him by the big fence that separates Bruno's world from the very peculiar place on the other side.

Summary: This sequel to The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas takes a character from that novel on a journey to a place she never goes, the past. Through her story, the author explores the aftermath of the war and the effects of a lifetime of guilt. 1946. Three years after a cataclysmic event which tore their lives apart, a mother and daughter flee Poland for Paris, shame and fear at their heels, not knowing how hard it is to escape your past. Nearly eighty years later, Gretel Fernsby lives a life that is a far cry from her traumatic childhood. When a couple moves into the flat below her in her London mansion block, it should be nothing more than a momentary inconvenience. However, the appearance of their nine-year-old son Henry brings back memories she would rather forget.