CHANGE: THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS By: Rory

BEFORE I FINISHED THE STORY I have just finished reading the first couple chapters of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. An opinion I have is I think the John Boyne uses really good, visionary words. He is very detailed in his writing and really gives me visuals of the story. Some examples are………

I really like how when the author wrote the book, he made the characters act very realistic. Bruno acts how a real 9 year old kid should (I know, I have a brother around the same age). Gretel is very impatient, like most 12 year old girls are. She acts like she knows everything, just like most of the teenagers in our grade do.

An opinion I have about the John is dialogue. I think he doesn’t use enough discussion in his writing, and I got pretty bored after every couple pages not having anyone talk in it. The story was very interesting, but I think some of the thing in the book weren’t as necessary as other things that could have been put in the book.

I don’t like how the author takes a long time to get to the point. I know he writes beautifully and very descriptively; but he writes a lot where he can write the same thing, equally as beautiful, in a much shorter amount of time. In the story he exaggerates a LOT of things. He might take a whole paragraph on telling me how somebody’s shirt had a stain on it. I think the author should exaggerate the important things, but not every single little detail.

AFTER I READ THE REST OF THE BOOK I think when Bruno and Shmuel went into gas chamber; “real” 9 year old boys wouldn’t have been so oblivious. I know they didn’t really know what was going on, but they were being shut in a room with a bunch of people they didn’t know. The fact that they were treated so cruel also was a little suspicious. If it were my brothers being shut in there, they would have been curious and maybe even freaking out. I think in the story they act way too calm.

Another opinion that has changed is the dialogue. I think towards the end of the story the author used more dialogue, which kept me interested. There were still some spots where not a lot was going on, but overall there was more conversation. I thought John was good at keeping things moving smoothly.

Another thing that has changed is that the author was too descriptive. Before I thought that John used too many descriptive words, but now, I don’t think he did. I think in the end, when Bruno and Shmuel were in the gas chamber, he worded the end of the chapter beautifully. It wasn’t gory, and it didn’t tell a lot of what happened; but it made the reader use their brains to figure out what happened.