This book is about a nine year old boy named Bruno, who has to leave his five storey house in Berlin to move to an isolated house out of the country, he is extremely annoyed as he has to leave behind all his friends and he would have no one to play with there.
However, he meets a boy named Shmuel, who is a Jew and lives on the other side of the ‘fence’ with many other people, where they are treated extremely badly and are not given much food. They quickly become friends and Bruno often smuggles some food for Shmuel. Beginning to get used to the life here, Bruno was informed that he, along with his sister and mother, would all be moving back to Berlin because this was not a suitable environment to bring up two young children. However, just before their departure date, Bruno does something that no one will ever forget…