The Devil's Arithmetic
By Jane Yolen
Published by Puffin Books
Copyright 1988
166 Pages
Historical Fiction

This book is a gripping story of a girl names Hannah. On the day that she and her family are celebrating Passover, she is chosen to be the one to open the door for the prophet Elijah. She then is taken back in time to 1942 Poland where she is Chaya and living with her aunt and uncle. The next day the Nazis gather up the small village and ship them off to a concentration camp. Hannah qickly learns to keep silent and not to question anything. She is amazed at the horrors that she sees. From the gas chambers to the ovens. She makes friends with other women, only to have them "chosen" as the Nazis call it, and taken to the "cave" which is the ovens. She witnesses her uncle being shot and children being taken away, never to be seen again. She soon loses track of the days and starts to forget her real life and family. One day, she is talking with some girls that she has made friends with, when the guards "choose" her three friends. Hannah quickly switches places with one of the girls and her and her two other friends are marched off towards the "cave". She tells the girls stories to calm them down and as she enters the "cave", she is then brought back to her time and her family. She then has a greater respect for her grandfather who survived the campsa and learns that Chaya was a real person who sacrificed herself for her friend.
I read this book when i was in fifth grade but reading it again really made me think. i really dont remember it being that graphic. I think that this book is an excellent book to help understand what happened in the concentration camps. It is descriptive but not too bad that it would gove someone nightmares.
i would definitly recomend this book, but to an older child who wouldn't be so scared of all the facts.
the only problems i see coming from this book is that maybe parents wouldnt want their child reading a book that talked about death and the horrendous things the Nazis did to the Jews.
i would like to see the movie that they made based on this book and see how they portray the camps.