Everyone Loved It But Me: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

2:23PM Mar 24, 2022

Speakers:

Heidi Rabinowitz

Lisa Hedger

Keywords:

book

holocaust

bruno

read

shmuel

fable

people

fiction

jewish

works

striped pajamas

readers

story

heidi

author

nazi

article

librarian

written

jews

Welcome to Everyone Loved It But Me. My name is Lisa Hedger and I'm your host. I'm a freelance writer, editor and journalist in central Ohio. This is the podcast where we embrace differing opinions on literary favorites. Today's discussion is very powerful because guest Heidi Rabinowitz is a Jewish librarian and expert in Jewish kidlit. And she shares very candidly about how the book we're discussing, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, is extremely offensive to her. I will tell you that just a few days after we recorded this episode, the author John Boyne announced he is releasing a sequel to this book. First we're going to jump into this discussion with Heidi and be sure to stay tuned because she's going to share some other middle grade and young adult books to read about the Holocaust instead of this one. And when we're done talking, I'm going to share just a little bit more about that sequel. And next week, I'm releasing a shorter Book Bits episode where you'll get to hear Heidi again and we're going to delve into some joyful Jewish books put on your bookshelf, Now on to the show.

I am so excited to have Heidi Rabinowitz on the show today. She runs The Book of Life podcast it's an interview format podcast about Jewish kidlit with occasional coverage of YA/adult books, that she established in December 2005. I will include a link in the show notes as well. She has been the director of the Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel in Boca Raton, Florida since 1998. She also is responsible for the Sydney Taylor Shmooze blog, and you can find many Jewish children's book reviews there as well. Welcome to the show. Heidi, it's so great to have you.

Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here.

Yeah, and I will include some some links to to those sites as well that we had just talked about. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, I will give a very, very brief description. This was written by Irish novelist John Boyne in 2006. It's a young adult or maybe older middle grade Holocaust book. We meet Bruno who's a nine year old German boy in the 1940s. His dad is in the German military, we find out he's just received some kind of promotion. The family moves from Berlin. And this little boy is all bummed because he has no one to play with. And he sees a giant fence at his new isolated house, and he sees people wearing striped pajamas. And one day, he's exploring and meets a boy at the fence. And the two of them form a friendship or a relationship of sorts. Heidi, I know this is a book you read some time ago, I'd love to kind of hear your original thoughts and what you thought of it now.

I'm not sure if I need to kind of explain a little bit more about the book in order to explain my differing reactions the first time and the second time. This book is written in the style of a fable. It's actually, they say that on the book, they said it's a fable.

Yes, that's a good point.

A fable is a story with a moral to teach. And I don't actually believe that this book works as a fable. But it is written in a very specific style where it's taken out of reality, it's kind of using very broad strokes, sort of almost in a fairy tale kind of style. And it's like when it was a new book, right, when it was a new book, it was almost kind of like they wanted you to go into it blind so that you would be surprised as you read it, you're supposed to have this dawning horror that Oh, my goodness, they must be talking about the Holocaust! and you know, that's supposed to creep up on you. You know, it worked until the book became famous. And now everybody already knows what it's about when they start reading. It's sort of a gimmick, it has this gimmick to try to play upon your emotions in this way and surprise you, shock you. When I first read it was back when it was pretty new. And so it manipulated me emotionally the way it was intended to do. You know, I, as I was reading I was like, oh my goodness! It works, you know the the gimmick worked. Rereading it now...

Ten years, right?

Yeah, I think longer than that. When was it published? 2006. Yeah, rereading it now, being already aware of what it's about as you go in and also having heard a lot of critiques from from other people whose opinions I respect, both from things that I've read online and other librarians who I've spoken with, I came to it with a much more skeptical eye. And at this time, I have all these sticky notes all over the book saying "come on, really?!?" There are a lot of issues that I have with it now that I am not just falling for the the emotional gimmick that the book is trying to draw you in. I didn't fall for it this time and therefore could see it more clearly and was extremely annoyed in many aspects.

Well, so I think this is what happens a lot of times on a second read is you can be a little more analytical, you know, the first time you're just trying to absorb it, like what's happening, what's going on. And so not only did you have kind of the gift of that analysis, but also time, right that you know, and given of course, what you do with your general analysis with children's literature and things like that.

I wanted to talk about the the fable concept. So the book labels itself as a fable. Now, a fable is a story with a moral to teach, but what is the moral here? So, you know, the denouement of the book, when Bruno becomes Shmuel's, quote, twin and suffers the same fate as the Jews in the camp, perhaps that's to imply that we're all the same and man's inhumanity to man is tragic, but that's not a lesson. So that's, you know, we already know that. Also, are we? Are we all the same? And I've been thinking about this ever since I listened to-- I don't know if you've heard of the boo (this is not for children)... There's a book by Dara Horn called People Love Dead Jews.

Oh, no.

And yeah, and there's a companion podcast called Adventures With Dead Jews, which is actually amazing. I mean, the title is very dark. But it's really interesting. And what she says is that when she was young and learning about the Holocaust, she went to a Holocaust Museum and saw an exhibit that was trying to say that, you know, we're all the same. So everybody should be treated fairly, because we're all the same. And a Holocaust survivor said to her, Well, what if we're not all the same? Is it okay to kill people then if they're not the same? And so that's what I think is something that came to mind as I was looking at the supposed lesson of this book. And with Bruno and Shmuel being the same, right? Well, what if, what if people aren't the same? Does that mean that they should die? And I actually even looked up SparkNotes about the book and it says, there is no clear lesson here. This story doesn't really fit into the fable format, it's not just me. Okay. That's the first thing I had to get off my chest.

Okay, good. That's excellent. That is excellent.

So, so that's my first problem with this book is it's not even doing what it claims that it is doing. It's not providing a fable with a moral that we can learn from.

Right. Right.

I'm offended by a few particular elements of this book. There is this attempted humanization of Nazis and the sort of absolution aspect of the story. So first, there's the scene where Maria, the family's maid, is telling Bruno how his Nazi father had been, in the past, had been really kind to her and this is an obvious attempt by the author to depict the Nazi Commandant as being not purely evil.

Right, right.

But it kind of backfires. Because he is evil. He's a friggin Nazi. And he has Jewish slave laborers serving him dinner. And he doesn't even care when his underling murders that guy right there in front of the whole family in the dining room because he spilled some wine because he was woozy from starvation. So you know, the humanization is not really working. And why are you trying to humanize Nazis anyway? Come on. So again, give me a break. And then at another point, Shmuel is the boy in the striped pajamas who Bruno made friends with through the fence, and he is brought into the house to act as slave labor. And Bruno gives him some food, but then he denies their friendship because he's afraid he's gonna get in trouble, you know, when a grown up comes along and says, Oh have you been eating food? How dare you eat food! This means Shmuel's gonna get punished off screen. I appreciate that Bruno later apologizes to Shmuel. But I'm actually really uncomfortable that Shmuel forgives him. And then they make a point of saying that right after that, for the first time he shakes hands with Bruno and it's the first time they've ever touched each other. So to me this represents some kind of absolution not just of Bruno but of Nazis and of the reader. What Bruno did was really a betrayal. And the consequences for Shmuel were really severe. I don't think he should have forgiven him, at least not so easily. And I don't think Bruno learns from this incident, he never actually takes responsibility to help Shmuel and it just kind of lets readers off the hook. That's another one of my issues.

Absolutely, and I'll include this link in the show notes too. And I don't know, you probably already saw this too, Heidi, but there was an article from the Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Center, posted that blog post in 2019, and they went in great detail mentioning many of the things that you have cited. The title is "The Problem with The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" and so one of the first things they bring up is, is they think that some people think it's it's a true story, even though it says fable. So they feel like there's that misconception right away. And then they they go through a lot of kind of what you said. And one thing that I just want to bring up and I have something, you know, I'm certainly no, no expert like you are in in the Holocaust or Jewish literature. But as I was reading this, I kept thinking to myself, and I understand it's a fable. And you are, there's some kind of, you know, like you said black and white lessons, but I just couldn't understand like, how is this kid nine, and the whole "fury" thing instead of Fuhrer, and not understanding Heil Hitler. And if he's in Germany in the 1940s, he would have learned all of that. But I was wondering kind of your thoughts on that on Bruno, not understanding at all. And even at one point, he says he was Jewish, like, he doesn't understand that.

Right. This is another thing that I have a huge issue with. And I think that the only way that this could have made any sense whatsoever is if you had made him, you know, on the spectrum or something.

Yeah, no, some kind of intellectual disability, right?

Yes, exactly. But he doesn't appear to have any issues. So the story is basically impossible, completely impossible. The son of a Nazi Commandant would have been in Hitler Youth, like by law, and would have been trained in antisemitic ways of thinking he would have known what a Jew was and that he wasn't supposed to like them. Shmuel, likely would have been killed upon arrival, because they didn't need children because they couldn't really be the kind of labor that they needed.

Right, he wouldn't have made it that long.

He wouldn't have made it that long. Prisoners wouldn't have time to be hanging around chatting at the fence. You probably couldn't get near the fence, it was probably electrified, you certainly couldn't crawl under it, there probably would have been patrols passing all the time. So the book is just, it's intentionally vague. It includes all these impossible scenarios. It's, so it doesn't educate about the Holocaust. It doesn't educate about antisemitism. All it does is manipulate, manipulate your emotions in a Holocaust setting, basically. When people say, Well, you know, it's a good introduction, because it doesn't show a whole lot of violence -- but it's not a good introduction, if it doesn't actually tell you anything you need to know.

Yeah. And it's interesting because this brings up I think, a really interesting debate right about literature because Boyne is saying and I'll quote, I'll include this link in the show notes as well. There's a Guardian piece, where they were asking him about these factual inaccuracies brought up by the the Holocaust Museum. And he's basically saying, just as a reminder, this is a work of fiction, right? There's nothing, you know, in fiction, it cannot be inaccurate. And I guess I see what he's saying. But it's, I guess I look at is historic fiction. So I'm wondering what you think about that, Heidi?

So technically, it's correct that if it's fiction, it can't really be incorrect. But what, how are you presenting your fiction? are you presenting it as a fantasy realm with Holocaust elements? Where magic happens? So so the people are clued in that this is fiction. Most historical fiction strives to be accurate. Most people who write historical fiction do immense amounts of research trying to get every detail as close to reality as possible. And to me that just smacks of laziness. I feel that, the there was a an excellent article. I don't know if you read about it, read this article. It was in Teen Vogue, which has become an incredible journal of political awareness recently.

I might have missed this one. So I will... Yes, do tell.

Yeah, the point I believe of creating this impossible story as this article talks about, is "pajamafication," meaning making the Holocaust more comfortable to talk about. Now, should it be comfortable to talk about? No, not really, it's a very uncomfortable thing, it should make you uncomfortable. Here's a quote from that article. "This book and others like it are often used to teach the Holocaust because regardless of their intent, these narratives do not challenge or educate readers but serve to comfort them." And the article was called Banning Books Like Maus Is Part of Sanitizing History by Gwen Katz and AR Vishny in Teen Vogue, February 9 of 2022.

Oh, wow. Okay, perfect.

So I want to go into some more detail. I have a lot of notes because I was so impressed with this article. So they say that the key hallmarks of pajamafication as they define it: first, it shifts the focus from the underprivileged to the privileged. And this book goes to great lengths to show how very privileged Bruno is. He comes from this house in Berlin, they keep talking about a five story house, they have a lot of servants. He never really puts himself into Shmuel's shoes. He doesn't even realize that Shmuel is hungry. Like he's bringing him a snack and he gets noshy so he eats it on the way.

Second, pajamafication emphasizes the innocence of the characters. So we talked about this. Bruno is impossibly innocent. He doesn't know who Hitler is. He doesn't know what a Nazi is, even though his father is one and he's surrounded by them every day. He doesn't know what a Jew is, he doesn't recognize a swastika or a Star of David, he can't even pronounce Auschwtiz. So he is ridiculously innocent. Third, pajamafication minimizes the events specificity and instead renders it as a sort of universal morality tale. The schtick of calling Auschwitz Out-With, which actually wouldn't make sense in German, calling the Fuhrer the Fury, the book definitely is doing that. Fourth, pajamafication omits details, and only refers to violent and disturbing of events obliquely and abstractly. So here's a perfect example of that. When Lieutenant Kotler kills Pavel, the Jewish man who has been serving dinner and spilled the wine, the text says, "What happened then was both unexpected and extremely unpleasant. Lieutenant Kotler grew very angry with Pavel and no one, not Bruno, not Gretel, not mother and not even father stepped in to stop him doing what he did next, even though none of them could watch, even though it made Bruno cry, and Gretel grow pale." You know, this is a perfect example of not going into the details. Although I have to say that in the copy that I had just borrowed from the library to reread, it had illustrations by Oliver Jeffers, which really undercut that whole technique because the there's an explicit picture of Kotler with his swastika armband, beating Pavel.

Oh yours had illustrations!

The edition I looked at is a more recent edition, it had illustrations that kind of give away... you know, you could see what was happening. So it kind of undermined its own technique. And then the fifth thing is it replaces first person nonfictional accounts with fiction. That's what pajamafication does. So I am a huge fan of fiction. And there's plenty of high quality Holocaust fiction out there. But for a topic this important, nonfiction should be relied on and first person accounts are invaluable. So even if you decide to go the fiction route, you should stick with fiction that doesn't lie to you. And if you do, that doesn't give you highly inaccurate ideas of what was going on during the Holocaust. And you certainly don't want fiction that centers the Nazi experience. And you certainly don't want to use that as an introductory text.

Right, right. Absolutely. Yeah, no, that's really good.

I was gonna say, so this article, it was so good that I just have to read you a little bit more.

Oh please do.

It explains what is wrong with The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and other books that pajamafy the Holocaust, it says, "Often pajamafied books about the Holocaust star heroic non Jews who hide and rescue Jews. And the Holocaust becomes a background for a heartwarming redemptive story, instead of the horror that it really is. If you only tell stories of people who helped hide Jews, or were otherwise involved in the war, but were not Jewish, it makes it easier to block out the trauma that victims went through," says Rebecca Levitan librarian at Baltimore County Public Library, and actually a friend of mine. It's important that we don't ignore what really happened. That was what Rebecca said. So I was happy that she gave a very good quote to this excellent article. So in pajamafied stories, oppressed people are not depicted as unique individuals with their own cultures, but as symbols that exist purely to teach a lesson about friendship, understanding how we're all the same on the inside. As Dara Horn says, the Holocaust is about the dehumanization of Jews. And she says, in a sense, there's some overlap between that and making Jews into a feel good symbol, which is also a form of dehumanization, because it's taking away the specific of the human person, a person isn't just a victim or just a mirror of the reader. But that's what it's turned.... It's it's a kind of objectification even if it's sort of a positive objectification. There you go. These, these are issues that I think make this book not worth reading.

Right. Right. Right.

I think it should not be used in education at all, I think people who are into Holocaust books, I mean, I know that people sometimes just have a fascination, right, and that is understandable. And so like, if you read a lot of Holocaust books, and this is one of them, it's not so bad, because you'll, you'll understand that this is not, this is fantasy. But if this is the one book, that's to me, it's unacceptable that this would be like the one book that somebody would read.

Right. And it was interesting because like, like we said, this is something that you know, the author John Boyne is very passionate about and there's, I'll include some links to this but he's had a number of you know, Twitter battles and things like that he had just posted something that said novelists do not write textbooks, they write novels, works of fiction. However he adds, "if teachers choose to use those novels in classrooms, that decision is made by them and is independent of the writer. That said, it is a privilege for any author to discover young readers studying their books." So it's really interesting to me, because he's saying, you know, okay, no, this, again, is work of fiction. But if the teachers choose it, then that's a great compliment. And it appears to me just doing some preliminary research that many teachers do use this because I've had friends and people on social media say, Oh, my kid read this in sixth grade. My sixth grader is not reading it right now and has not read it. But I know others who have so it seems like it is one of these, these books that that's on lists.

I think it's popular because it's, it's it's an easy read. It's not a dense text. Easy to digest, emotionally, it, it pulls you in, right? But it does so at the expense of the truth. And then just spoiler alert, at the end of the book, as we know, Bruno visits a concentration camp and gets carted off to a gas chamber and he dies. And there's this whole tragic notion that he quote, wasn't supposed to be there. Which is the shocker that's supposed, that makes you be like, Oh, my God, like as you're reading it, it's shocking. How could that happen? Poor Bruno, blah, blah. But how? What does that say about Shmuel? And all the other people in the gas chamber? Were they supposed to be there? Why isn't their death just as shocking without Bruno having to be involved? So it's offensive. It's offensive to me that it's shocking only because Bruno wasn't supposed to be there.

Exactly. And again, it focuses all on Bruno. And you know, really, I guess most of the characters, I was gonna say, Shmuel, very much is a one dimensional character. But I guess Bruno was too. I mean, pretty much they all are. And I guess you could argue maybe that's just because that's the fable way that perhaps that's why they're one dimensional, because I was noticing that was one of the questions that they asked in their discussion in a traditional fable. Characters are usually one dimensional. So I guess that part of it makes sense. I wanted to just read at the end, just for anyone who hasn't read this in a while, you know, they they still they stick with that Out-with the whole way through. And they say, "a few months after that some other soldiers came to Out-with and father was ordered to go with them. And he went without complaint. And he was happy to do so. Because he didn't really mind what they did to him anymore. And that's the end of the story about Bruno and his family. Of course, all this happened a long time ago, and nothing like that could ever happen again. Not in this day and age." I want to get your thoughts on the ending it on that final line? Oh, cuz I know you have some.

First of all, I'm like, why is this a story about Bruno and his family? But you know what, I have to step back from that, because if that's the story, he chooses to center them, okay. Y'know, they're people too. So the story is about them. I mean, my gut reaction as a Jewish reader is, why is it a story about them? But you know, that's, that's okay. You know, fine. It's a story about them. But the part about nothing like that could happen now. I think that's being said, with a slight tongue in cheek. I think that that's, now you know, when it was written, times were not the way they are right now, where it kind of feels like 1930s. At the moment, things are, you know, with creeping fascism, it's very frightening. And so, you know, at this point, to say nothing like that could happen these days is, you know, not at all a realistic outlook, something like that could definitely happen these days. It seems to be getting more and more possible. But I think, you know, back in 2006, maybe it felt more remote. But still, it wasn't that long ago, it's still within the lifetime of people. I know that we are losing Holocaust survivors now as they are becoming more elderly, still it's within a human lifespan. So I think that it's always been a kind of a nudge, nudge wink wink ending, you know, if the book is trying to serve some purpose of saying that this is something that can happen and watch out, then maybe that, maybe that final line is trying to do that to say, you know, yes, we're treating it like it's only a fairy tale, but this is actually something that can happen. So I guess I have less less of a problem with the ending than I do with everything that came before!

And I couldn't decide the ending, that' s why I wanted to get your thoughts. It's interesting, because this is a book like you said, it's very controversial. You know, I was reading and there's lots of Goodreads. There's lots of reviews all over like we mentioned, you know, New York Times all these different places that are kind of saying and there was someone else who I Googled who is a Holocaust survivor who has since passed, but wrote on Goodreads saying, "I just seem to be allergic to fiction about the Holocaust, I find the book in question grievously insulting to the historical facts," just the very same same things that that you have mentioned. And one thing that I did like when I was looking at the Holocaust Museum, their article they were bringing up, you know, kind of like the alternatives like what to read instead. And that's what I want to talk to you about as well. Of course, we all know Diary of Anne Frank, but, you know, I know there's other things out there that you know, would work for this age audience.

So, okay, so honestly, I read very little Holocaust literature these days because of years of overexposure to it when I was on the Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee, and it gave me Holocaust fatigue. Also a whole nother issue is I feel that the Holocaust is over an overrepresented theme within Jewish kidlit. I try to focus on and really boost books about other Jewish experiences, especially Jewish joy. That said, it is extremely important that kids learn this history. So I asked my friend Susan Kusel, who is a fellow synagogue librarian and kidlit expert, what she would recommend in this case, and she said, hands down, she wants everyone out there to read, We Must Not Forget: Holocaust Stories of Survival and Resistance by Deborah Hopkinson, which came out last year in 2021. Susan has read hundreds upon hundreds of Holocaust books. She tells me this is one of the best she's ever read.

Wow. Wow.

She was shocked that it hadn't won all sorts of awards. This is nonfiction for ages 9 and up, and it is nonfiction of the very best kind. It's accurate. It's detailed, but it's also very humanizing. Deborah Hopkinson is a non-Jewish author, and she's relating to the real Jews in her book as people, not symbols. And she's doing something that unfortunately is kind of unusual, she's highlighting their bravery and their resistance rather than their victimhood. So yeah, so this is a really amazing book, the backmatter is incredible. It's got a glossary, a timeline, additional resources, notes, bibliography, links to primary sources like oral history videos, it is like the opposite of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

Okay. Excellent.

She totally did her homework and engages you emotionally in an honest way. Whereas it seems like John Boyne did not do good research. And is just -- it sounds to me, like he's making excuses that, you know, oh, it's fiction, so everything is fine. Also, the idea that he's saying, Well, you know, if teachers decide to teach my fiction book in an inappropriate way, well, that's on their heads. To me, that also sounds kind of irresponsible, because I hear authors all the time, as you know, as a, as a librarian, as somebody who works with awards committees, as a podcaster who does interviews. I've spoken to many, many, many, many authors. And so many authors tell me about not only the incredible research that they do, but that they have a sense of responsibility to their readers, that they want them to learn, that they want them to know the truth, that they want them to feel emotionally safe as they're reading, like all of these different aspects of responsibility that we take to keep their readers safe and educated. And you know, that it should be age appropriate and understandable for them developmentally, all of these things that authors do have responsibility, right? You can't just say, well, I wrote it. Now, everybody can just do what they want. When you're writing for young people you have some kind of responsibility.

Right, right. And I wanted to add too, I always say when we do these books, I was I think if some Everyone Loved It But Me stat so it's not just me saying this is a popular book. Like we said it was published in 2006. It has sold more than 11 million copies in the world in 2007, 2008 was best selling book of the year in Spain. So this is all over the world, guys, not just the US. It reached number one on the New York Times bestsellers list, I believe back in 2008. USA Today has described it as memorable as an introduction to the subject as The Diary of Anne Frank. It was long listed for the Carnegie Medal, and then it has also become a movie and even in 2017 was adapted as a ballet.

It's disturbing to me that it's being used as an introduction to the topic. I do want to say that the other book I just told you about, the Deborah Hopkinson book, it works both as an introduction to the Holocaust and as an exploration for people who are already familiar with the subject, so it works for both, so I would highly recommend replacing your copy of Boy in the Striped Pajamas with this other book, We Must Not Forget. As to other recommendations. If you're trying to get your head around antisemitism in general, I would like to recommend a few contemporary novels. This is both middle grade and YA. The Assignment by Liza Wiemer, Linked by Gordon Korman, and there's a forthcoming book out coming out in September, Some Kind of Hate by Sarah Darer Littman. All of these are books that take place in current times, but that are about children now who are learning about the Holocaust and the ways in which they learn it, the ways in which they absorb those messages, the ways that it can be taught well, or taught poorly. So, you know, we hear a lot about how kids, how Holocaust education is uneven, it's done in some places not done in other places. Sometimes it's done well, sometimes it's done badly, a lot of kids don't know the information that they should know. So it's really interesting to read about learning about the Holocaust. So these are excellent titles that I would recommend.

This is a fascinating conversation, and one that I hope, you know, people who are teachers who are listening, or were thinking of bringing up this book, really do evaluate it and and I guess if if they do decide to do it, that they really, you know, frame it in the right way. Because I guess with every book, maybe you can learn something. But I know there's so many more, as you've said, there's so many more to that really depict this. Thank you so much for your time.

I would say-- Oh, sure. I was gonna say if somebody chose to teach The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, I would really hope that they would pair it with nonfiction that would give the accurate story and then do a contrast exersize with the kids to say, well, what would that make sense? Could this have happened? you know, let them analyze it. Only way it would make sense to include it.

Right? Because that's my fear about this kind of book. It is, you know, and I feel like I've read it a decent amount of Holocaust books, but not nearly as many as you've read, not nearly as many as experts. And I was still getting, you know, some red flags as I was reading this, like, wait a minute, could that happen? You know, but I just fear that so many readers, as we said, reading it, for the first time are really first being introduced, you know, would my 12 year old have picked up on all that? I'm not so sure that he would have connected all those dots without me saying, hey, wait a minute, what do you think about you know, bringing it up if he just read it on his own? I don't know about the, about connecting those dots. I think somebody really needs to help you. If you're that age, you'd say that's a I think that's about the age right for this book is probably 11-12. Somewhere around there?

Yeah.

Yeah. Like that upper middle grade kind of thing. So And well you have given us like such an awesome list. So I hope that people will, will look at that I'm going to include everything in the show notes and and the Teen Vogue article, we're going to include that as well. And the Holocaust Museum article, just all of these things that I think are really powerful. So good.

Thank you for sharing this with people.

All right, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

My pleasure.

I want to thank Heidi so much for taking time out of her very busy schedule to talk about this book. And especially because it is very difficult subject matter. And she shared very truthfully how offensive it is to her. Usually when we talk about these books, give our opinions and that's kind of it. And there's not usually a lot of news, if you will, In this case, I do feel that it is worth reporting, I want you guys to know that on March 2, John Boyne posted on Twitter that a new book called All the Broken Places that's a sequel to The Boy in the Striped Pajamas will be released on September 15, 2022. So this is narrated by Bruno's older sister Gretel, who at age 91, looks back on her life scarred by guilt and grief; that was from John Boyne's Twitter account. I will tell you there were hundreds of comments after his tweet with many people, horrified by the news and some excited. Obviously, I'm not comfortable talking about a book that I haven't read. I have not read the sequel so I can't offer any comments. I think my general thoughts on the matter is, you know, any time you're thinking about using a book, as an educational lesson, always be sure to do the research and and really do a lot of analysis to make sure that it should be part of your educational toolbox, as they say. So certainly, given the concerns with Boy in the Striped Pajamas. I think that certainly before you would use this book as an educational tool, the second book, I think, certainly you just really need to evaluate it and and read it. So that's kind of all I really want to say because like I said I have not read the book. We had a lot of concerns in the first book. Again, I want to thank Heidi so much for her time and I will include the links to the books that we discussed in the show notes. If you've got that Everyone Loved It But Me book that you'd like to see me discuss, please reach out to me on my website, www.Everyoneloveditbutme.com. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you have a lovely day. And most importantly, I hope you get time to read today.