If you have never read this book I suggest you go out today and buy a copy - it is quite a compelling and extremely well written book - and don’t let its YA status put you off either.

I will admit that the first couple of pages felt quite clunky to read but once I settled down I pretty much read it from cover to cover in a couple of hours on a wet and windy Saturday afternoon.

This is the story of Bruno - a nine-year-old boy who has to leave his beloved home - with five floors and a banister that you can slide down - to live in a house with only three floors in a place called Out-With. This is the story of Bruno - a nine-year-old-boy who doesn’t understand why he can’t go out ot play with the little boys who appear at the bottom of his garden. This is the story of Bruno - a nine-year-old-boy who goes out to explore one day and sees ‘a dot in the distance become a speck and that spot becomes a blob and that becomes a figure and that in turn becomes a boy in striped pyjamas.’

This is a story about a time in history most of us would like to forget - but that we should be forced to remember - and the terrible things that can happen when people keep secrets from each other…