This book divided the bookclub into those who read it as a book that should be historically accurate, and those who felt it was more about friendship. It was said in the meeting that it could be read with the head or with the heart.
Some readers thought it would be read differently by people who had prior knowledge of the topics in the novel, like Auschwitz and the Nazi's. We weren't sure if prior knowledge would have a positive or negative effect on how you felt about the book. In fact it might be a prompt to younger people to talk about the war, so might be a good idea for school children studying the war to start with something like this.
We were also uncertain about the naivety of Bruno, we came to the conclusion that it was necessary for the story and could be realistic given that children from earlier generations were naive for longer.
Overall we would recommend this book to other people and we gave it an average of 8 out of 10!
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