This month marks the second annual celebration of book groups as the Women’s National Book Association launches National Reading Group Month. Across the United States, publishers, bookstores, libraries, authors, and readers are all coming together to show their appreciation of the act of shared and thoughtful reading.

At PaperTigers, we are excited and happy that book groups are receiving the attention that they deserve, and that blogs all over the country are providing helpful tips for successful meetings and lists of suggested titles. We hope, as we all pay attention to book groups, that we pay particular attention to book groups for young readers.

It’s easy for reading to take a back seat to all of the other activities and preoccupations that usurp our free time, and for no one is that more true than for children. By making reading a sociable and scheduled activity, we give it a special priority that assures that it won’t get lost in the shuffle of daily life, and by coming together to discuss what we have read in a group of friends, we find ourselves reading more slowly, more thoughtfully, and with great pleasure. What better way is there for our children to spend their time than to share what they have read with friends who have read it too?

We at PaperTigers have our own book group, The Tiger’s Choice, where adults and children come together online to read and discuss a book that all ages can read with equal pleasure. Over the past ten months, we have explored different cultures and different countries from Cambodia to Germany during World War Two. We read with the desire to bring the world closer, and to make multicultural literacy a global undertaking, not merely a national one. We believe that children who learn to appreciate and understand the cultures of other countries will grow to be people who will live harmoniously and respectfully in the world.

As we celebrate National Reading Group Month, we invite you to join our own reading group, and ask you to let us know what reading groups you offer for children. What are you reading? What has worked for your reading group and what has not? Let’s talk!

Bruno, in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, is one of the more problematic fictional characters whom I’ve found within the pages of a book. While Corinne said in her comments that she thinks his character is realistic, since he is a nine-year-old boy who has led a sheltered life, has an overbearing older sister, and lives in a time when there was no television or internet, I found his inability to understand his own language, as shown by his persistent usage of The Fury for the Fuhrer and Outwith for Auschwitz, to be unconvincing, contrived, and essentially unnecessary. However, it’s certainly true that without television and other mass media we could all be as uninformed and as naive as Bruno and that sometimes a character is more an instrument to advance a story’s plot than a breathing, convincing entity.

And Bruno certainly does advance the plot of this story. It’s a page-turner. As Corinne says, ” Once I started it, there was no way I could put it down until I had finished it.” I gulped it down as well and was relieved to know that this is the way the author intends for the book to be read.

Bruno’s simplified way of looking at the world around him makes this a good introduction to the Holocaust for children who know little about this time in history, and could work well in a classroom setting where there would be immediate answers to the questions that arise.

As an adult, I was annoyed by “red herring” portions of the book that were brought up and then never fully explored. Lieutenant Kotler is grilled by Bruno’s father over dinner one evening about the reason for Kotler’s father leaving Germany in 1938. Is Kotler’s father a Jew? A dissident? Who knows? It is never explained and left me wondering why the scene took place. It doesn’t seem to play a part in Kotler’s subsequent disappearance, which Corinne attributes to Kotler’s closeness to Bruno’s mother.

The shocking ending of this book comes so closely after Bruno’s betrayal of Shmuel and Shmuel’s subsequent punishment for stealing food that it could be wondered if Shmuel had intended for Bruno to stay behind the fence forever. Although Bruno is sheltered and naive, Shmuel understands the differences between the two boys, especially after living in the camp for a year. Corinne, on the other hand, says “Yes – I think Shmuel intended for Bruno to return home. I don’t think either boy had any idea what would happen or the risks they were taking when Bruno crawled under the fence.”

This is a book that bears discussion and I hope that it will be chosen for book groups, classrooms, and family read-alouds for years to come.