1. Part One: The Story

2.  What happens in the story?  Activity: Tell the story to your partner in two minutes.

3.  What was your favourite moment in the play?  Why?

4.  John Boyne: “I have described the book as a fable, which I define as a work of fiction with a moral at its heart”  What do you think a story “with a moral at its heart” means?

5.  Can you think of any other examples of fables?  What do all of these examples have in common?

6.  A fable is a fictional story with a moral: a lesson that you can learn from  Activity: What do you think is the moral at the heart of the story of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas? Come up with a one-line summary of the message of the play.

7.  Activity: Look at the following list of Bruno’s actions from the play. Discuss if you think he was right or wrong to do each of these. Why?  Bruno steals food from the kitchen to give to Shmuel.  Bruno goes exploring after he has promised his parents that he won’t.  Bruno lies to Kotler and tells him that he has never seen Shmuel before.  Bruno crosses into the camp to help Shmuel look for his father.

8.  Activity: In small groups, make a frozen picture of each of the following images. Make the first image in each pair, then when the teacher claps, change to the second image.  Friendship / Sworn enemies  A dividing fence / A dividing fence with a boy on each side  Superior / Inferior  A secret / A horrifying discovery  A Doctor / A slave  Betrayal / Forgiveness  What sort of story do you think these conflicting images might come from?