The Devil's Arithmetic

Fabulous Book to Read in the Classroom!!!

I read this book for my Children's Literature course and absolutely loved it. I had never read a book on the Holocaust before, so I thought this would be a great opportunity. Jane Yolen did a fabulous writing this book so creatively. I liked how she incorporated both the present and the past. This book gives you a sort of first hand experience of the Holocaust. The main character, Hannah, is a young girl who is tired of hearing about the Holocaust. She doesn't truly understand why it is so important to her family's history and she is tired of hearing her grandfather talk about it. I think this goes hand in hand with children in today's society. A lot of children do not see how significant the Holocaust was in history. That is why I believe this book would be an excellent addition to one's literature curriculum. Jane Yolen not only gives first hand accounts of the Holocaust within the book, but also filled the book Jewish heritage. Throughout the book there are Yiddish terms and names. These are of historical significance to the Jews. Overall, this book explores a very important historical event in a that would interest and benefit students. This book would introduce students to a new culture.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Enjoyable book!

Jane Yolen writes a wonderful book about the Holocaust and the experiences that a young girl went through in the concentration camps. Hannah, a thirteen year old girl acts rather spoiled at the beginning of the book when all her family can do is to remember their past lives in the concentrations camps. She complains she does not want to remember and wonders why she has to.

Hannah then gets transported back in time to the year 1942 where she gets taken off to a concentration camp where she learns the cold hard reality of what her past family was trying to remember at Seder. She becomes more respectful towards those around her and their feelings because she knows how she felt then and that they felt the same. She returns to her old life where she realizes that her Aunt Eva was one of her friends in the camp and they talk about the past.

I used this book in a book club where we were able to discuss the pros and cons about the book. We all agreed we liked it but that it is for older readers starting at age 12. This is because it can be graphic at some points and can be too much for young readers to handle. Yolen gives a good detailed description about the life of Hannah and those around her. In the back of the book Yolen also explains how the book relates to her family's history and what parts are fiction and nonfiction. I enjoyed this book and feel it is a must read in any class studying the Holocaust, a history buff, or a person who is not familiar with WWII.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Excellent introduction to the Holocaust for young readers

Hannah is a young Jewish girl who is bored with the seemingly pointless traditions of her heritage and the ranting and raving of her Holocaust survivor relatives. During the Passover Seder, she is asked to open the door for Elijah the Prophet and finds herself transported to a small Polish village in the 1940's.


Now known as Chaya, she is overwhelmed by the change in setting and wonders if her memories of a modern world are real or just a forgotten dream. At a wedding ceremony, the entire village is rounded up by Nazis and Hannah remembers the terrible things that are about to happen to the Jewish villagers.


Despite her pleas and protests, history continues to unfold in the same way and the journey of the villagers and Hannah to a concentration camp is described in vivid detail. Hannah is forced to experience the harsh conditions and inhumane treatment that her older relatives had described to her a lifetime ago. At the novel's grim climax, Hannah finally understands the importance of sacrifice, and subsequently, of remembering the horrible events of the past.


Although the subject matter is heavy, this is a great book for introducing young readers to the Holocaust. It is accurate in its details, seemingly derived from Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz (AKA, Is This a Man?) and other sources. Yolen's narrative structure is very well-suited toward drawing in readers who might not be interested in the subject.


[Disclosure: This review also appears on FingerFlow.com, a site for review and discussion of creative works.]

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

The Devil's Arithmetic

"Now, six million Jews will die in camps like this. Die! There, I've said the word. Does it make it more real? Or less? And how do I know six million will die? I'm not sure how, but I do." Typical Hannah, with her thirteen year old attitude, dreads going to her family's Passover Seder. To her, it seems like the same pointless routine every year, but what Hannah doesn't know is that it will be a Seder that she'll never forget. When Hannah symbolically opens the door to welcome the prophet Elijah, she is magically transported to 1942 in a little Polish village. Equipped with valuable knowledge of the Holocaust, she is captured by Nazis and put to the test of surviving in a concentration camp.

To me, Hannah was a perfect main character for the book. She's the type that doesn't care for traditions, takes things for granted, and "tired of remembering." By putting her in 1942, I think it really changed her perspective of life and made her take that 180 degree turn.

Imagine if you were put into a concentration camp when you were thirteen. Having to live through one of mankind's most devastating tragedies, experiencing the worst imaginable situation man can create, and survive. "Auschwitz was the worse of the camps, where in two and a half years two million Jews and two million Soviet prisoners of war, Polish political prisoners, gypsies, and European non-Jews were gassed." Would you fight for your survival or just give up?

Author Jane Yolen made a strong point that the Holocaust should never be forgotten. She effectively wove her information into her book and like the Holocaust, I will never forget it.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

I loved it!

I loved reading this book because it is a great way to learn about what happened during the holocaust without having to read something like a biography. If you are planning on seeing the movie they are basicly NOTHING alike. But it was a really good book and I really loved it!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Devil's Arithmetic

I have found this to be a very good book for sixth grade. Not only does it teach about the Holocaust, but it teaches self-realization and growth as well. It has great symbolism. It is very well written.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Great read

This book was very well written and very enjoyable. I like learning about the Holocaust, and this book teaches you a lot of things. It's very touching, and I can't even begin to comprehend what all those people must have gone through. The fact that this book is based on a real event makes it even more horrifying yet entertaining. Great book.

This book rocks

Book Review Outline
Book title and author: The Devils Arithmetic
Title of review: my book review
Number of stars (1 to 5): 5

Introduction
This is my book review it's about the book I raid the book is The Devils Arithmetic I suggest that you read this book. I liked it and I bet you will too.

Description and summary of main points
This girl Hannah is Jewish and Hannah is tired of all the Jewish Holladay's and she wishes that her family wasn't Jewish.
Evaluation
I though the book was a good and I would recommend that you read it.

Conclusion
She's not just Jewish she's also English and Yiddish.

Your final review
My book is The Devils Arithmetic I found this book very interesting and I hope that who ever reads this book likes it just like I did I know that Jewish people can relate to this book. The girl was tired of Jewish Holladay's and wishes that her family wasn't Jewish but at the end she finds out that she's not just Jewish.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

from a teacher's view

I ordered this book from Scholastic for my classroom. After reading it, I realize that it is more suited for Jr. High or High School students than 4th graders. Although I think that younger students benefit from learning about the Holocaust, I think books more like Number the Stars are more age appropriate for 9 and 10 year olds. being sent to a concentration camp. The story told has a magical element of time travel, that she had a hard time selling to me. However, the purpose and story is there.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Great Lesson

This was a good short read for 5th grade and up. It's a good story to remind us all of our heritage and where we came from. But for Hannah, it's a life long rememberence not only for her, but for all of us in the world to remember the Holocaust. The book give moderate details of what a small portion of a concentration camp was like.

This was more of a lesson for Hannah to realize why remembering was so important for her family and the Jewish people. In the end she understood.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Olatunde Badejo

The devil's arithmetic is a book that takes you back in time to relive the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps, through the eyes of Hannah, who while at her Seder gets transported back in time. She meets gitl and Shmuel who tell Hannah, who they call chaya, about how she got there. Her parents died of a mysterious disease, which she also got , but she came to live with Gitl and Shmuel before it got serious, and chaya survived. It also happened to be the day before shmuel gets married to fayge. The next day, on their way to the wedding, they run into a group of nazi soldiers who tell them they need to come with them for "relocation". That's when Hannah finds out what year she's in, 1942. She tries to convince the other villagers not to go with the officers, but they decide to follow them. A long train ride ensues, where they are given no food, and 8 villagers die. Then they get to the concentration camp, where they are forced to work. Hannah meets another girl, Rivka, who is actually her aunt Eva in the future, and together they strive to survive in the concentration camp. Then one day a new officer comes to the camp and decides to send rivka for "processing " and Hannah takes her place, ending Hannah's journey in the past.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

amazing

this was truly an amazing and engaging book to read! i dont necessarily like the fact that she goes back in time (not a big science fiction fac) but the way its written puts in into a new perspective!

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

HOrrible tragic to wow and amazing

I read this and loved it
I love to hear all the ways suriviors survivedand even though this may not be true it still was amazing and has the facts right

Very Well written.

This book is a new look at a time in history where fear was the main theme. It was an interesting perspective from a child who is from the future going back into the past, trying to remember things that she learned from her present to try and save however many people she can. Although the concept that she can start to forget her memories is a little hard for me to grasp, it did keep me entertained all the way to the end. A wonderful read with a historic storyline.

One of the best books about the holocaust:) <33 love forever!!!!=}]

My review on The Devils Arithmetic, by Jane Yolen


This book is a great fictional book about the Holocaust. Jane Yolen did a great job writing this book, she had to know a lot about the Holocaust to write this book about a young Jewish girl that is transported back in time to 1942 in a small Polish village, and then taken away by Nazis to a concentration camp. Hannah is transported back in time and her name is changed to Chaya, which is her Hebrew name in present day America. Hannah is always suffering in this camp but her family keeps pushing her to keep on keeping on. The barracks where she stays are crowded and hard to sleep in, but she lives with it. She works in the kitchen of the camp, and the good thing about that is she gets leftover bits and crumbs from the burnt potatoes on the bottom of the soup pot. One night she and some of the other camp members try to escape, and some of the men in her family are caught. The next day the escapees are executed, by being shot. Hannah and her cousin are safe they were not caught. A couple days later she meets a young girl, that in present day America is her aunt, but the girl she meets teaches her lessons on how to stay alive. Like, "Never say the word dead." About a month later, Hannah and most of her family is taken to the gas chambers and killed. When she dies she is returned to the present and sees her aunt, she finally likes going to Passover Seder to see her family.

From the Jewish past

" ...Open it Hannah!" he called out loudlly. "Open the door for Elijah!"
Baby stories! she thought angrily unlatching the double bolt. Flinging the door open wide, she whispered, ready or not here i c...'
Outside where there should have been a long, windowless hall with dark green numbered doors leading into other apartments, there was a greening feild and a lowering sky. the moon hung ripely between two heavy grey clouds. A bird pelted the air with a strange, lilting song. And across the field, stepping in the furrows, marched a shadowy figure. He had a shapless cap on his head, a hoe over his shoulder and he was singing:
Who asked you to be buried alive?
You know that no one forced you.
You took this madness on yourself."


Hannah was a thirteen year old Jewish girl who was bored and tierd of celebrating her familys past. She didnt see why she had to spend every holiday with her family, and her rambling fit throwing grandfather who embaresses her. Why did the past always have to be remembered when it was the past? But as she opened that door symbolicly for "Elijah" she somehow opened up a door to the past.


The Devils Arithmatic is a short story with only about 164 pages of true historical happenings. Back in the 1940s Hannah goes back and the story kindof shows you what its like to be living in a consentration camp during the holocaust and just how horrible things can be. The long journey to the concentration camps where they were all locked up and crowded in boxcars crying and screaming trying to get out but failing. The way they were forced to be stripped naked and to be tattooed with dark blue ink, and only known as a number and the way they were all crowded together in a room.


I really enjoyed this book and thought that it was verey interesting, but it was quite sad to see what kind of things happend. i would recomend this book to anyone who wants to learn more or is interested in Jewish people and the holocaust.


The Devils Arithmatic was written by Jane Yolen who is jewish herself. i think that part of the reason she wrote this book is because she wanted people not to forget the past. which she says so many immigrant families are prone to.


I think readers should deffinatly give The Devils Arithmatic a chance. It will keep your attention, and help you learn alittle bit about how things used to be during the holocaust.

Reviewed by Cana Rensberger for TeensReadToo.com

THE DEVIL'S ARITHMETIC by Jane Yolen is required reading at my school, as it is in many middle/junior high schools across the country. I've been meaning to read it for several years but never did, until my son read it this year as an eighth grader. He insisted I read it. How could I resist that?

Hannah is celebrating Passover Seder with her family. It's the same thing every year. Grandpa will get all worked up over old photos on TV, shaking his fist, screaming about the numbers on his arm, and Aunt Eva will calm him down as she always does, laying a hand on his arm, leading the same old Jewish prayers as Hannah mumbles along. But this year will be different. Hannah's brother, Aaron, will get to hide the afikoman, Hannah will get to taste real wine, and then she'll get to open the door to symbolically welcome in the prophet Elijah.

But when she opened that door, she had no idea just how different this year's celebration would be.

Instead of seeing the hallway in front of her as she expected, she sees a man coming her way, crossing a field. Confused, she turns back to her family and instead sees a strange woman, dressed even more strangely, kneading dough on a wooden table. Hannah's confusion grows as she hears herself referred to as Chaya, and discovers that these two people believe themselves to be her Aunt Gitl and Uncle Shmuel. More unbelievably, they talk about her parents' deaths, and that she herself had nearly died, sick for weeks.

Feeling like she's in a dream she can't wake up from, she finds herself pulled into wedding festivities, which includes walking to a nearby village for the celebration. There, her dream turns into a nightmare. Hannah is slowly disappearing as Chaya is loaded onto trucks with the other villagers. Then, later, they are prodded like cattle aboard boxed railroad cars with no ventilation, and they travel, standing, for four days and nights without food or bathrooms. What follows is days, weeks, maybe months, in a Jewish concentration camp.

Jane Yolen's telling of the Holocaust is chilling. She gathered information from survivors, those heroes who remember so that the atrocities of the past will never happen again. Ms. Yolen writes in her final pages to the reader, "That heroism - to resist being dehumanized, to simply outlive one's tormentors, to practice the quiet, everyday caring for one's equally tormented neighbors. To witness. To remember. These were the only victories of the camps."

This book is incredibly powerful. The way Ms. Yolen weaves the past and present together forces the reader to make personal connections. She makes the reader think and ask questions. How could society have allowed such a thing to happen? And, more importantly, how can we assure that it will never happen again? I truly hope THE DEVIL'S ARITHMETIC will remain required reading in schools. Each new generation must bear the weight of those lost souls upon their heart. They must believe that such devastating events can, and did, happen. Only in believing and remembering can we move forward to a better society.

Thank you, Ms. Yolen, for this riveting and thought-provoking book.

Fantastic =)

This book is perfect for someone who puts down their background or makes fun of it. It teaches you to appreciate what your ancestors had to do for you just to be here. This story in the beginning wanted me to hate the charactor Hannah for upsetting her poor old grandfather. But her going back in the past living through the Holocaust perhaps changed her view about what those numbers meant and how she shouldn't have made fun of her family's historic past.

Teaches pride in ethnicity

Teches that even though you may be up against it, never turn your back on your own no matter what, even facing death. Hannah did, and then later regreted it.

amazing!

This book is sooo good! My teacher had us read it in school and at home, and at first it sounded like a really nerdy book. But once we got into the first few chapters, I really couldn't put it down. The sudden change in the begining was a little confusing, but when we talked it over with our teacher, we all understood it. This is a great book for schools, and for booktalks. There are so many things that happen in this book. It is a great book to talk about because everyone has a different opinion. It got sad at times, but it was always interesting. This book is very very true, also. It tells basically EXACTLY what went on, in the exact order of it. Everything down to the food was the same as it was in the real Holocaust. This really opened my eyes and showed me what happened in the Holocaust.