"The Devil's Arithmetic" by Jane Yolen - A Puffin Modern Classic

Jess: The pages in this book were out of order. I know it’s printers right to left and read back to front, but the chapters and pages were not in order.
Very, very disappointing.

Canada on Sep 28, 2023

Amanda: Purchased for school. Was what was needed. Worked great as long as you are able to read.

United States on Sep 26, 2023

David W: Bought this for my daughter's ela class. Is a good book

United States on May 29, 2023

Keisha Schoreck: I first read this book in jr high school. It was a captivating way to introduce preteens/young teens to WW2. I recently saw that it was on a “banned” list, while I could remember all the details, I remembered really enjoying it. So I bought it. It came today, and I finished it within a few hours. I will be giving it to my 11 and 12 year olds to read as well.

This book reminds us how important it is to remember the past, even if it is ugly and uncomfortable.

The authors not at the end says it perfectly
“ Today, a lifetime later we can echo Winston Churchill who wrote: ‘There is no doubt that this is probably the greatest and most horrible single crime ever committed in the whole history of the world’ And yet it is STILL impossible, unimaginable, difficult to grasp. Even with the facts in front of us, the numbers, the indelible photographs, the autobiographies, the wrists still bearing the long numbers, there are people in the world who deny such things actually happened”

United States on Apr 18, 2023

lawyeraau: This is a moving work of fiction about the Holocaust that is geared towards the middle school age reader but will hold the interest of even adults, such as myself. It tells the story of a thirteen year old girl from New Rochelle, NY who is at a family Passover Seder and bored by her grandfather’s rants about the Holocaust, which he personally experienced.

While playing a game during the Seder, she suddenly finds herself pulled back in time to a shtetl in 1942 Poland, where she will discover for herself, firsthand, just what the Holocaust was like, as well of the meaning of the numbers tattooed on one’s arm. It is a voyage that will prove to be unforgettable , as well as instructive.

Where Hannah’s voyage of discovery takes her, and what it will mean to her, will keep the reader turning the pages of this book. This book is a voyage of discovery for the reader, just as much as it is for its protagonist. Just enough information is provided to the young reader to give them a basic understanding of the horrors of the Holocaust and instill in them a desire to learn more.

United States on Mar 28, 2022

John K Bond: As advertised

Canada on Mar 02, 2022

fra7299: Although there are many Holocaust books out there that are in the young adult genre (Elie Wiesel’s Night and The Diary of Anne Frank come to mind), I had not heard of The Devil’s Arithmetic until a friend mentioned it.

In the novel, Hannah, an American Jewish teenager who is indifferent and apathetic towards her Jewish family’s past, is transported back to the 1940s to experience one of the most tragic, painful, and horrific points in history.

I felt like this book was an immensely powerful read, one that moves very quickly and one in which the reader can get into the head of the protagonist as she travels back into a dark time in history. As one from the future, Hannah knows all too painfully the horrors that await the Jewish people and those in the concentration camps.

The Devil’s Arithmetic works and fits into several genres. It is a fantasy in which a young girl must travel back in time to witness and be part of her family’s suffering to fully understand and to never forget. But, obviously, the book, while tame in its graphicness, is a very realistic portrayal of such atrocities experienced. And, while the names of the places have been changed,...

United States on Jun 01, 2021

Anne: Very well written. A good insight into the plight of the prisoners in the concentration camps.

Canada on May 17, 2021

Avantika: Holocaust is one of the terrifying facts which has happened in world history & this book has depicted the same through a girl who didn't knee the gravity of the incident & had to relive her past by going through the same .This book is worth the buy & it's my 2nd time in reading it.

India on Aug 24, 2019

sally tarbox: As an adult reader, I must admit to not expecting great things, as the story opens with a modern American Jewish family celebrating Seder. "Passover.. is about remembering," Mama tells her bored, slightly spoilt daughter Hannah - the horrific WW2 losss of the older generation wash over the girl, who has heard it all before.

Then, in a deft bit of time travel, Hannah finds herself living in a Polish shtetl in 1942 with an unknown family. It's the eve of a wedding and everyone is happy, but the Nazis are close at hand... As she experiences the horrors of life in a concentration camp, she understands the desperate yearning to survive:

"Everyone knew that as long as others were processed, THEY would not be. A simple bit of mathematics, like subtraction, where one taken away from the top line becomes one added on to the bottom. The Devil's arithmetic."

With a touching ending, I thought this would be an ideal book for around the 11 - 12 age-group (but this adult liked it too!)

United Kingdom on May 08, 2016