But still there are moments when a brother and sister can lay down their instruments of torture for a moment and speak as civilized human beings and Bruno decided to make this one of those moments.

War today is such a more visible thing. We see it on television, on CNN. In 1914, war was a concept. There was a naivety and stupidity that war would be a great lark. It's not that different from Gone With The Wind, where all the young men can't wait to go off to fight and then two hours later in the movie, we see how the reality of that has come home to them.

It is possible, you know, to drift off to an unknown world and find happiness there. Maybe even more happiness than you've ever known before.

With the adult ones, I feel I need to get as deep inside the psychology of a character as I can, and that needs to be first-person. In the children's books, I feel I need some distance. I don't want to be the nine-year-old at the center of the story. I need to have some type of narrative voice.

Sitting around miserable all day won't make you any happier.

Their lost voices must continue to be heard.

What exactly was the difference? he wondered to himself. And who decided which people wore the striped pajamas and which people wore the uniforms?