JOHN BOYNE SPHERE OF INFLUENCE: BOOKS

WHILE authors such as JK Rowling and Philip Pullman have been credited with drawing many younger readers to books (and many older readers for that matter), even when they take on weighty themes, their stories gravitate towards the fantastical, magical worlds that would naturally appeal to children.

With The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, Irish author John Boyne's stroke of genius was to capture younger readers' imagination while remaining solidly rooted in the all-too-real world.

Boyne's book is an astonishing balancing act, managing to set a story during the holocaust and make it captivating and compulsive, while never shying away from the horrors of what happened. The fact that the book appeals to both children and adults, while talking down to neither, is further testimony to the author's skill and evidenced by the fact it spent 35 weeks at the top of the bestseller list in Ireland and in the New York Times.

Nine-year-old Bruno is the story's narrator and he fails to fully comprehend what is going on around him. All he knows for sure is that his father is an important man and his whole family had to move from Berlin to a place he clumsily pronounces as "Out-With", that has lots of fences around it and has lots of people in a uniform that resembles a striped pyjamas. His youthful naivety and curiosity then lead us into a darkness that he is oblivious to.

Boyne was the first person ever to write a children's book about the Holocaust, and the controversy around it is set to rise in 2007 when the film adaptation gets underway with Miramax/Disney and producer David Heyman (Harry Potter) behind it. And just to make sure he takes up as many spots on bestseller lists as possible next year, Boyne has also recently released his fifth novel, the thriller Next of Kin.