Notes on using The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

In our eagerness to engage with a new story it can be easy to overlook the title page of a book but observant readers of the first edition of John Boyne’s award winning novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2006) will be aware that the full title is The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas – a fable. A fable is a teaching tool, a fictional narrative with an edifying or instructional point often with a cautionary conclusion. Therefore, from the very outset this book proclaims itself to be a work of fiction rather than a historical account.