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.

A multicultural background provides rich material for an aspiring writer. That is, if you get the encouragement and information you need to get started writing at all.

Girls Write Now, a New York City-based non-profit, is an incubator for multicultural writers. The organization, founded in 1998, teams young women who want to be writers with women authors, journalists, playwrights, poets and editors in a program that annually produces an anthology of student writing and several public readings.

Girls Write Now works with disadvantaged girls 13 to 20 years old, about 40 percent of whom are immigrants; most of their parents don’t speak English and often they are the first in their families to apply for college. A program of classes and tutorial guides, Girls College Bound, assists high school juniors and seniors with the often onerous college application process.

Here’s a New York Times article featuring personal stories of these young writers and their mentors. Here’s an interview with founder and director Maya Nussbaum. If you’re New York-based, and want to volunteer to help with the program, click here.

Hats off to Girls Write Now for their inspiring, dedicated work. Perhaps some multicultural books for children will emerge from the program!

If sunlight and warmth have hit the almost-polar regions of the Pacific Northwest, then it must be summer everywhere in this hemisphere–time for lemonade, picnics, beaches, long days spent outdoors, and lots and lots of books!

Summer reading is its own special category of literature–it’s the time of year when we remember that books are instruments of delight and amusement. It’s also the time of year when so many other things compete for our time and attention that reading sometimes is put aside until autumn and the required reading lists roll around.

When The Papertigers blog first began, Corinne had a wonderful post that discussed summer reading programs presented by libraries (which, Marjorie told us, also takes place in England under the wonderful name of “reading schemes.” Wouldn’t you rather scheme than take part in a program?) and said that she and her children celebrated the end of school by going to their library, signing up for the reading program, and going home laden with books. What a splendid way to mark the beginning of summer!

Of course not everyone lives near a library that offers such a program–I certainly didn’t when I was a child–or perhaps a crowded schedule of sports, summer camp, and family vacations prevent participation in a library program. For these people, we invite you to make The Tiger’s Choice your summer reading program. It fits into any schedule since you can comment when you are ready, on your computer, at any time of the day or night. It welcomes readers of all ages who love children’s literature, so you can discuss books with your friends, your parents, or even your teacher! It’s also a great way for youth group leaders to supplement their own summer activities with discussions about books, or for educators to stay in touch with their students.

If the monthly selections don’t appeal to you, tell us what you are reading on your own and why you like it–you may help someone else to find a new favorite author. (This is what happened to kids who responded to our Asking the Kids questionnaire–Geronimo Stilton and Young James Bond now have new readers.)

We’ll keep track of your suggestions and comments–when the end of August comes around we hope all of us will have found new books to love and new ways at looking at old favorites. Please join us!

And please add your comments to our discussion of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which will end as June draws to a close.

John Boyne says that he likes it when people read The Boy in the Striped Pajamas “in one or two sittings, over a couple of hours maybe…Because that, in a way, is how I wrote it.” That’s exactly the way I read this book, without stopping, in an hour or two, because once I began I couldn’t stop. Did this book pull you in from the first page, or did it take time before you were completely absorbed? If so, what part first pulled you in to the story?

Bruno incompletely understands the world around him and expresses his lack of understanding through puns. Was this something that enhanced the story for you or did it annoy you?

Do you think Bruno is a realistic portrayal of a nine-year-old boy, or is he young for his age? Do you think nine-year-olds today are more mature, and if so, why?

Why did Lieutenant Kotler disappear?

Do you think that Shmuel intended for Bruno to return home from their final meeting?

This is a book that left me yearning to talk about it. Please respond with your own questions and observations so we can continue this discussion next week.

My friend Holly who is an ardent and gifted bookseller of children’s literature put The Boy in the Striped Pajamas into my hands when I asked her which recently-read children’s book resonated and lingered with her long after she had put it down. She is a woman whose taste is beyond impeccable so I took her recommendation home with me, read it, and months later am still haunted by it.

Because it is a book that falls outside of the usual geographical boundaries that mark books recommended and reviewed by Papertigers, and because it is a disturbing work of fiction, I didn’t immediately feature it as a Tiger’s Choice for children and adults to read together. Then I talked to my friend and colleague Corinne about it. She immediately read it and gave it to her eleven-year-old son, so they could discuss it, and I begged to be part of their conversation when it took place.

And that clinched it–if this book had this effect on Holly, Corinne and me, all women of different ages and backgrounds, and if Corinne instantly passed it on to her son, it is a book that merits discussion by a wider audience–and here we are.

I think the author would be happy to know that it has been chosen as a book for both adults and children to talk about in a forum where everyone has equal footing. John Boyne remarked in the interview at the end of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, “I’m not entirely sure I know what the difference is between a children’s book and an adults’ book,” and then quotes a friend’s question, “What is Treasure Island?”

There will be no questions posed about this book until we begin to discuss it after June 15th because it is crucial that we all come to our own conclusions in our very own ways. In explaining why it is a book that has world-wide importance, John Boyne says, “Fences such as the one in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas still exist; it is unlikely that they will ever fully disappear.” Perhaps if enough people talk about this book, and other novels that address the same issue, we may someday live in a world without fences.

Outsider art, while often likened to children’s art, is a challenging topic for children, since outsider artists’ lives are so often deeply troubled. But Susan Goldman Rubin‘s 2004 introduction to the subject for middle school and older kids, art against the odds: from slave quilts to prison paintings (Crown Publishers), is an inspiring testament to how art heals. In four liberally-illustrated chapters she tells stories of people who became artists while encarcerated in mental institutions, prisons (including prisoners of war) and concentration camps; of quilters living in deep poverty; and of K.O.S. (Kids Of Survival), a group of inner city kids whose teacher realized that their defacement of books was in fact an innovative art form. Rubin concludes by describing an exhibit of toys made by children around the world who “are doing what children do in the most desperate circumstances in a creative way.”

Folk art and self-taught art from all cultures are related fields with much appeal to children. North Carolina art dealer Ginger Young is a great resource on self-taught folk art in the southern U.S. Background material about folk art for teachers can be found here. Susan Goldman Rubin’s other art books for children include the 2007 Delicious (Chronicle Books), about American cupcake connoisseur and painter, Wayne Thiebaud.

When we began to think about creating an online book group that would appeal to readers of all ages, there were classic titles that came quickly to mind. Finding books that corresponded to the PaperTigers’ goal of understanding different cultures through children’s literature was a challenge and an opportunity for exploring new reading adventures.

I was lucky. The first book I found on my initial foray into this new world of books that would appeal to both adults and children was one that immediately captured my heart and mind—Naming Maya by Uma Krishnaswami.

I’ve worked in bookstores for decades but this novel was one that I hadn’t encountered before. I was eager to hear other people’s opinions of it and to have the chance to talk about it, the way we readers always feel when we find a book that we love.

The comments for Naming Maya have been as rich and as thoughtful as I had hoped they would be. Readers have agreed that this is a book for mothers and daughters to read together, that it evokes India in a way that could describe Hyderabad as well as it does Chennai, and that the theme of dualism is expressed quite beautifully in the idea of the “Two-Gift.” As Maya herself concludes about trust, in an observation that applies to many things in this novel–and in life–”You keep some, you give some away.”

What makes this book one that I can return to with pleasure for reading over and over is, above all, the way that three very strong women of different generations are portrayed, Maya, Kamala Mami, and Maya’s mother. Together they make a household that is both temporary and enduring, and Uma Krishnaswami makes each of them enduring figures in the reader’s imagination. It is no small feat to be able to give life to characters of varying background and chronological age, but it is accomplished so well in Naming Maya.

Not only is Chennai vividly evoked in this book, but so is its culture and values. Uma Krishnaswami delicately and without editorializing shows through Maya’s eyes different ways of accepting marriage, of being a teenager, of growing old. And she so wonderfully shows how food can be a common language when living in a place where three different languages are routinely used and in all of them words sometimes fail.

“I hear you need a cook,” Kamala Mami announces to Maya and her mother, the day after their arrival in India. They do indeed, more than they know. Kamala Mami’s food brings them slowly together–right up until a dish made from her recipe crashes to the floor and releases Maya’s torrent of hitherto unspoken emotion.

The one complaint I have about this novel is that it hasn’t yet been released in a paperback edition, which would make it accessible to many more readers than it already is. When I recently told a fellow-bookseller about Naming Maya, his response was that far too few books address the subject of bi-cultural children, a point that both Aline and Katia touched upon in our discussion. Uma Krishnaswami has found a universality in belonging to two different worlds. Through her art Maya’s duality becomes a new way for readers of all ages to look at their own lives, and that is an act accomplished by literature that is truly great.

If you haven’t yet read this book, I envy you the joy of experiencing it for the first time. If you know a young girl with whom you can share it, I envy you even more. If you’ve read it already, discover the joy of reading it again–and add your opinion to mine in the comments field if you agree that it should be reissued in a paperback edition, please!

Bruno is a nine-year-old explorer with nothing to explore and no friends. His family has been moved from their comfortable, spacious house in Berlin to a place that is small and isolated. Nobody lives nearby except for a large number of people behind a long fence, whom Bruno can see at a distance from his bedroom window, and the soldiers whom his father oversees. It’s a dismal, gloomy place and Bruno wants nothing more than to leave it and go back home to Berlin.

Everyone, from his parents to his annoying older sister to the maid who has known him since birth, assure Bruno that this is impossible, but nobody will tell him why. So Bruno decides it’s time to explore his surroundings, as unprepossessing as they appear to be.

As he enters the outside world, mysteries present themselves. Why is the old man who helps him when he falls from his tire swing now a waiter when he used to be a doctor? Why don’t any of the people whom he can see from his window, the ones who live behind the fence, ever visit his family? And who is the boy dressed in striped pajamas on the other side of the fence who becomes Bruno’s only friend?

There are many questions in this book, and many of them continue to go unanswered when the end has been reached.

Is it a children’s book? No. Is it a book for adults? No.

“It’s a book,” the author tells us, “It’s a story.”

That it is, and it’s one that readers of all ages will want to discuss. Let’s talk.

We’re still receiving comments on this month’s Tiger’s Choice, Naming Maya. Please add your thoughts about this wonderful novel before the discussion ends at the end of May. And if you are eager to read additional fiction that will complement Uma Krishnaswami’s work, Sherry York has just published Ethnic Book Awards: A Dictionary of Multicultural Literature for Young Readers, which includes a reader’s guide to Naming Maya.

Next month we will go to historical fiction that will awaken a whole new arena of conversation, we hope. For those who would like to find the book in advance of the discussion, the book will be The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne. Originally published in Great Britain, this novel is available in paperback and is a Young Reader’s Choice Award nominee in my corner of the world. It’s also showing up on quite a few adult book group displays, and will be our focus in June.

The other day a comment came in from “Matthew” who said quite simply, “I like the Time Warp Trio.” Thank you, Matthew–so do I! That series is the perfect blend of adventure, humor, and history in a format that is pure delight to read.

And thank you for responding, Matthew–you’ve given me the courage to send some questions out to you and other people who are not yet adult–you’re the true audience for the books that we talk about on Papertigers and we want to know what you think. So here are a few questions–if there are any kids out there who would like to answer one or two or even all of them, we would be grateful!

When I was young, there were three kinds of books that I read: the ones that I had to read for school, the ones that I read just for fun, and the ones that I read over and over again because I really loved them. Is that true for you too?

What books do you read for fun?

Have you ever read a book more than once? If so, which ones?

Who is your favorite author?

Are there books that you like so much that you tell your friends about them?

What books have you borrowed from the library that you want to keep?

Are there books that you’ve read for school that you really enjoyed? And are there any that you had to read that you didn’t like? What are they?

Are there books in a series that you can’t wait to read? Do you read them again once you’ve finished them or do you only read them once?

What book is your favorite one that you’ve read this year?

What is your favorite kind of book–mystery, adventure, science fiction, sports story?

If you’re a boy, do you ever read books where girls are the main character that you have chosen to read on your own and not for school or because your mother told you to? If you’re a girl, will you read books about boys that aren’t assigned reading?

What kind of books do you NOT like to read?

Do you have a favorite author?

If you would like to answer any or all of these questions, please go to the comments field and write to us!

For adult readers: Please pass these questions on to your favorite young reader!