Children’s books on grown-up themes. On J. Boyne’s novels The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and The Boy at the Top of the Mountain

Abstract

The essay is concerned with the work of the Irish writer John Boyne, who received international renown upon publication of his two young adult novels: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and The Boy at the Top of the Mountain. The two books are connected by the same topic — a child and the war — as well as an unconventional view of the fate of the small protagonist who becomes entangled in the big history. Among the characters of Boyne’s novels are children of high-ranking Nazis, prisoners of concentration camps, people inhabiting pre-war Europe, and even the Führer (Hitler) himself. The essay not only comments on the plots of the two novels, which follow the lives of Boyne’s young protagonists, but also suggests that everyone, including children, is responsible for their moral choice: whereas Bruno, the hero of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, remains pure in heart, his counterpart Peter (Pierrot) from The Boy at the Top of the Mountain becomes infected with Nazi ideology. In addition, the essay discusses certain facts of the writer’s biography, mentioning, in particular, that he turned to young adult fiction after a successful career in ‘grown-up’ literature.