When a 9 year old boy named Bruno returns home from school, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father receives a promotion and their family must move from their home to a new house in a far far away, where there is no one to play with or any thing to do. A tall fence running alongside stretches as far as the eye can see and cutting him off from the people he can see in a distance.
Bruno longs to be an explorer and decides that there must be more to this desolate new place then he meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose circumstance are very different to his own, and there meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.
