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[CCBC-Net] Boy in Striped Pajamas
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From: LAURIE DRAUS <DRAUS>
Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 13:31:15 -0600
I have not read the book either, but I am somewhat a student of the Holocaust.
>From the descriptions and reviews, and the "English-language" aspect (alluded to by Louise), it comes across as if it might be work intended to have a symbolic, mythic representation of truths of the Holocaust--the stark, torn life of the boy inside, brought into contrast to the apparent "ordinariness" boyhood of an aspiring "explorer" whose food is always plentiful and laundry is always done--perhaps to emphasize the obliviousness of much of the world at the time?--rather than being intended as a realistic historical fiction work.
Even if this is the intention, though, there still exists the danger brought up by Ruth to be taken into consideration--that of young people not steeped in Holocaust history taking it literally, and assuming that camp commanders' children freely chatted in a chummy way with prisoners of Auschwitz, who roamed around as if it were a park.
To: ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu Subject: [CCBC-Net] Boy in Striped Pajamas
I have not read the book but can understand that a child might misunderstand Fuhrer as fury and Auschwitz as out with. As for striped pajamas, prisoners did wear striped uniforms a child might think of as pajamas. Of course the boy would not be allowed to wander the camp but he could have survived the selection process. And this book is fiction. Louise
Lauri Cahoon-Draus K-12 Library Media Specialist Suring School Libraries draus at suring.k12.wi.us
**triton
"It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts." Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Bohemia.
Received on Fri 03 Mar 2006 01:31:15 PM CST
Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 13:31:15 -0600
I have not read the book either, but I am somewhat a student of the Holocaust.
>From the descriptions and reviews, and the "English-language" aspect (alluded to by Louise), it comes across as if it might be work intended to have a symbolic, mythic representation of truths of the Holocaust--the stark, torn life of the boy inside, brought into contrast to the apparent "ordinariness" boyhood of an aspiring "explorer" whose food is always plentiful and laundry is always done--perhaps to emphasize the obliviousness of much of the world at the time?--rather than being intended as a realistic historical fiction work.
Even if this is the intention, though, there still exists the danger brought up by Ruth to be taken into consideration--that of young people not steeped in Holocaust history taking it literally, and assuming that camp commanders' children freely chatted in a chummy way with prisoners of Auschwitz, who roamed around as if it were a park.
To: ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu Subject: [CCBC-Net] Boy in Striped Pajamas
I have not read the book but can understand that a child might misunderstand Fuhrer as fury and Auschwitz as out with. As for striped pajamas, prisoners did wear striped uniforms a child might think of as pajamas. Of course the boy would not be allowed to wander the camp but he could have survived the selection process. And this book is fiction. Louise
Lauri Cahoon-Draus K-12 Library Media Specialist Suring School Libraries draus at suring.k12.wi.us
**triton
"It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts." Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Bohemia.
Received on Fri 03 Mar 2006 01:31:15 PM CST
