I've read a few too many books using the same time travel trick to spotlight a terrible moment in history, and the plot of *The Devil's Arithmetic* is fairly obvious and predictable since it's aimed at kids. But even as I was cynically thinking all that, the ending still grabbed me by the throat and shook me. Can't argue with results, right? This is a powerful young adult historical fiction read, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a book club selection.I hadn't heard of Jane Yolen's *The...

I was 14 when I read my first Holocaust book – Leon Uris’ *Mila 18* – and I was deeply disturbed for a long time by the Nazi savagery and Jewish despair depicted in it. Although I've been drawn to literature from that period ever since, I feel that the graphic details in *The Devil's Arithmetic* by Jane Yolen are too intense for anyone under 12. The heart-wrenching portrayals of children in books like *Mapping the Bones*, *The Boy in the Striped Pajamas*, *Anne Frank’s Diary*, *The Book Thief*, ...

“Those who do not know history are destined to repeat it.” Hannah, a young Jewish girl, celebrates Seder with her parents, grandparents, and brother.She doesn’t understand why they keep this tradition, why people need to remember tragedies from the past. Here, now, everything is peaceful, and her only worries are about the activities she has to do, even though she doesn’t feel like doing them. But she doesn’t know that everything is about to change. She is asked to symbolically open a door, but ...

Hannah and her family are celebrating Passover. When Hannah opens the door to look for Elijah, she's transported back in time to 1942 Poland, right when the Nazis are rounding up Jewish people for the Final Solution. Chaya, which is Hannah's name in this time, tries to warn her family and friends about what's coming, but nobody believes her as history just keeps barreling forward. **The Devil's Arithmetic** is mostly aimed at younger readers, making it a great introduction to the Holocaust. Jane...

My son came home last week, complaining, "Mom, can you believe my English teacher is making us read a book this close to summer break?" Being the bookworm I am, I got excited and asked what the book was. He said, "The Devil's Arithmetic." I'd never heard of it, so I looked it up. After reading the summary, I immediately reserved it to pick up the next day. I devoured it in one sitting! I cried my eyes out – seriously! I read everything my kids read, and I’m so glad my son got the chance to exper...

This book was absolutely foundational for me. I first read "The Devil's Arithmetic" when I was around twelve years old, and it launched me into a deep dive of research about the Holocaust that I've never really come back from. I really connected with Hannah at the start of the book, feeling tired of always having to remember, finding all the fuss and tradition of Jewish holidays, especially the Passover Seder, kind of boring. It wasn't the first time I'd learned about the Holocaust, but it was t...

This semester I'm requiring my students to read *The True Story of Hansel and Gretel*, a novel that takes place in Poland during World War II. The good news is that my students love the book; in fact, several of them are reading ahead. The shocking fact, the bad news, is what they *don't* know. It isn't just knowledge of history that they lack; it's knowledge of basic geography. God bless PowerPoint and the blackboard. To be fair, my students do ask intelligent questions, yet the lack of basi...

I wish I could say I liked this book, The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen. I really thought I would. I know it's critically acclaimed and a well-known story, often recommended in Holocaust book reviews. But honestly, it left me with a bad taste in my mouth. The book is meant to educate young people about the Holocaust, but it had a lot of historical inaccuracies that bothered me. The idyllic shtetl world at the beginning of Chaya's story would have been long gone by 1942. By that time, all the...

I wasn't really sure what to make of *The Devil's Arithmetic* by Jane Yolen when I first saw it, but after reading it, I'm so glad I did. This is one of those books that genuinely makes you see things from a new angle. I can relate to Hannah because I remember being 13 and having zero patience for traditions and customs, just wanting to hang out with my friends. Anyone looking for insightful book reviews will appreciate this.But given Hannah's experience, she was able to see things differently a...

This is a marvelous book for young adults, though I wouldn’t recommend "The Devil's Arithmetic" as their first introduction to the Holocaust because it portrays the atrocities committed in a starkly realistic way. And, unlike some young adult books that I enjoyed as young as nine or ten years old, I wouldn’t give Jane Yolen's "The Devil's Arithmetic" to kids until they were at least 12. It is a wonderful story and, because the main character, an American Jewish girl who’s 12 years old, is from ...