Review: The Boy at the Top of he Mountain by John Boyne

Published: 224

Pages: June 2016

Synopsis: “When Pierrot becomes an orphan, he must leave his home in Paris for a new life with his Aunt Beatrix, a servant in a wealthy household at the top of the German mountains. But this is no ordinary time, for it is 1935 and the Second World War is fast approaching; and this is no ordinary house, for this is the Berghof, the home of Adolf Hitler.

Quickly, Pierrot is taken under Hitler's wing, and is thrown into an increasingly dangerous new world: a world of terror, secrets and betrayal, from which he may never be able to escape.”

Rating: *****

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I have read a few books by John Boyne, and the only expectation I had of this one was that I was probably going to need tissues.

Initially, the reader is given a succinct introduction to Pierrot’s life in France but then quickly everything changes and the reader is thrust along the journey through Germany to Austria with the young boy. Written very well and tactfully, it was thought provoking to see the war and the rise of the Nazis through the eyes of a young boy who doesn't necessarily understand what is going on around him. The book is aimed at children of a similar age to the protagonist and they may be reading this without the knowledge about Hitler and WW2 that we have when reading this as adults. It would be interesting to get a child's perspective on what they think about what they have read and their opinions on the themes and topics discussed.

Personally, I felt that the character development was very patchy. It was as if Pierrot changed within a few pages. On one page he was identifying as French and a few pages later he was identifying as German. On reflection, the book was spaced over quite a few years, with chapters starting with sentences such as "by the time I was 8" etc, so it probably just appeared that the development was more stilted than it actually was. The book could have done with being longer, so the character development was more subtle, but this would probably have taken the book into the realms of YA or beyond.

The Boy at the Top of the Mountain was so well written that despite knowing exactly what was going to happen and what kind of world Pierrot was going to find himself in, you still had the impact of the emotional punch when it happened. It is difficult to experience this when you know what is coming, but John Boyne does it so well.

Another extremely well written and researched, emotive work from John Boyne.