80 pages • 2 hours read
John BoyneA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
One day in wartime Berlin, nine-year-old Bruno comes back from school only to find out the family’s servants are packing his and his family’s belongings. His mother informs him that they will have to leave Berlin because “the Fury” has an important job for his father elsewhere. Bruno does not know what his father does; he only knows that his father wears a “fantastic uniform.”
Bruno will miss his friends and his home, especially the banister that is perfect for sliding down from the third to ground floor. He hopes his grandparents, who live close by will also come with the family, though he would rather leave his 12-year-old sister Gretel—whom he calls “A Hopeless Case”—behind to guard the house. As he goes up to his room to help the maid, Maria, pack his stuff, he hears his parents arguing.
Bruno is dismayed to see the new house stands alone in the middle of an empty field. He compares it unfavorably to his home in Berlin, which is on a quiet but busy street with a nearby market.
He tries in vain to persuade his mother that the move has been a mistake, but she tells him they will have to “‘make the best of a bad situation’” (27).
By John Boyne
Allegories of Modern Life
View Collection
Childhood & Youth
View Collection
Coming-of-Age Journeys
View Collection
European History
View Collection
International Holocaust Remembrance Day
View Collection
Juvenile Literature
View Collection
Memorial Day Reads
View Collection
Military Reads
View Collection
War
View Collection
World War II
View Collection