The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Use these links to supplement and complement students’ reading of the work and to increase their overall enjoyment of literature. Challenge them to discern parallel themes, engage through visual and aural stimuli, and delve deeper into the thematic possibilities presented by the title.

Recommended Texts for Pairing

Night by Elie Wiesel

• memoir of Wiesel’s time in Auschwitz published in 1956 and first translated into English in 1960
• connects to themes of the consequences of war and children’s grasp of war (Wiesel was a teenager during WWII)
• Compare and contrast Night and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas as nonfiction and fable-like treatments of the Holocaust, respectively. What are the strengths and limitations of each genre?
• SuperSummary's Night Study Guide

“September 1, 1939” by W. H. Auden

• 1939 poem inspired by the Nazi invasion of Poland, here read by Jeremy Irons
• connects to the theme of the consequences of war
• Consider its depiction of all of humanity as children and how this intersects with its treatment of war and our reactions to it.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

• 2003 novel depicting the intertwined lives of two Afghan boys of different ethnic backgrounds who are (unbeknownst to them) half-brothers
• Consider the friendship between Amir and Hassan and the former’s betrayal of the latter, and discuss this in relation to Bruno and Shmuel as mirror representations.