📚 Welcome to “Book Compass”!
📚 Welcome to “Book Compass”! Books are like lights in the dark: sometimes they gently illuminate the path, and sometimes they flare up so brightly that they change the way you see everything. In our column,у you’ll find not just titles, but true beacons for the soul and mind. Today, “Book Compass” is in the hands of Ekaterina Ivanovna Kuzmina, head of the socio‑psychological service: 🗣 “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas” by John Boyne is a book you won’t be able to put down — and yet you’ll never want to reread it. The story is told from the perspective of a little German boy, Bruno, who lives in a close‑knit and well‑off family. His father is an officer building a successful career; his mother is a homemaker; his sister is a teenager captivated by the latest cultural trends. Unexpectedly, changes come to Bruno’s family life — they move to a small town. For the little boy, this is a real tragedy: there are no other children there, everything looks strange, people walk around in pyjamas, and “black snow” falls from the huge chimneys even in summer. It’s as if his parents aren’t themselves anymore. An unexpected meeting with another boy brings Bruno joy and new adventures. It seems that everything is fine and it’s the start of a long, wonderful friendship… but it’s the early 1940s, and the “town” is in occupied Poland. Some might think the book is written in very simple, uncomplicated language — but that’s precisely its point. The reader sees the chilling events through a child’s eyes, sharing his thoughts and feelings as he experiences one of the most terrible chapters in human history".