I am thrilled to announce I FINALLY finished Memoir From Antproof Case yesterday. Talk about a long time coming! Overall it was interesting, but the long chapters just didn't work for me. Also, I found the blurb on the cover sounded far more exciting than the book actually was. Sure there was a murder mystery, sure there was a bank robbery, but all-in-all I was unimpressed.
However, in rapid-fire reading I started/finished The Boy in the Striped Pajamas in no time flat. Now THAT was a quick read! Yes, it is only 213 pages (in comparison with Memoir From Antproof Case at 500 and something) and it is a semi-children's novel, but it was fantastic. And by fantastic I mean horrific, but fantastic. The story follows Bruno, the nine year old son of a German military leader during World War Two. His father is put in charge of "Out-With" (you figure out the pun) and the family moves next door to the fence around the concentration camp. Over the course of a year or so Bruno secretly befriends one of the boys in the camp and sneaks out every afternoon to talk to him from opposite sides of the fence.
I will be teaching World War Two in a couple of weeks, and this is something I may read segments of to teach the Holocaust. It's pretty heartbreaking, but it certainly gets the point across.
