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{{short description|1988 children's time slip novel by Jane Yolen}}
{{infobox Book | <!-- See Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_Novels or Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_Books -->
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2012}}
| name = The Devil's Arithmetic
{{About|the novel|the TV movie|The Devil's Arithmetic (film)}}
| title_orig =
{{Infobox book
| translator =
| name = The Devil's Arithmetic
| image = ]
| author = ] | image = The Devil's Arithmetic.jpeg
| author = ]
| cover_artist =
| country = | country = ]
| genre = ], ], ]
| language = ]
| series = | publisher = Viking
| genre = ], ] | isbn = 0-670-81027-4
| publisher = ] | pub_date = 1988
| release_date = October 1988
| media_type = Print (] & ])
| pages = 170 p. (hardback edition)
| isbn = ISBN 0-670-81027-4 (hardback edition)
| preceded_by =
| followed_by =
}} }}
'''''The Devil's Arithmetic''''' is a ] ] novel written by American author ] and published in 1988. The book is about Hannah Stern, a ] girl who lives in ], and is sent back in time to experience ]. During a ], Hannah is transported back in time to 1941 ], during ], where she is sent to a ] and learns the importance of knowing about the past.


== Background ==
'''The Devil's Arithmetic''' is a ] written by ] in ]. It tells the story of a ] girl, Hannah.
Author Jane Yolen, who is ], noted that she had considered writing about the Holocaust for some time, but was overwhelmed. She was convinced to pursue the subject by an editor of hers at the time, who was a ] wife.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Yolen|first=Jane|title=Devil's Arithmetic, The – Jane Yolen|url=https://www.janeyolen.com/the-devils-arithmetic/|access-date=2020-12-18|language=en-US}}</ref> ''The Devil's Arithmetic'' is the author's first book that deals explicitly with Jewish themes.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Yolen|first=Jane|date=1989–1990|title=Speech Delivered at the Sydney Taylor Book Awards|journal=Judaica Librarianship|volume=5|issue=1|pages=52}}</ref>


While writing the novel, Yolen spent a week at an ] private school; when she explained to students about her forthcoming work, one student asked if Yolen had made up the events of the novel, based on the real story of the Holocaust.<ref name=":2" />
==Plot introduction==
Hannah is tired of remembering the horrors of the ] and the story of ]. She is living in modern day ], yet at her family's Passover ], she is transferred to ] during the height of the ] occupation in ], where she becomes Chaya.


==Plot summary== ==Plot==
Hannah Stern is a Jewish preteen girl living in the present day. She is bored by her relative's stories about the past, is not looking forward to the ], and is tired of her religion. When Hannah symbolically opens the door for the prophet ], she is transported back in time to a ] on the ]/] border in 1942, during ].<ref name=":2" /> Hannah is not immediately aware of the time period.
{{spoiler}}
{{sect-stub}}
Young Hannah Stern, 12 turning 13, was tired of remembering. Especially of her grandfather's constant bursts of rage at any comment about the Holocaust because he was a survivor himself with his sister. When Hannah is celebrating the Jewish Passover at her grandparents house, she was chosen to do the symbolic welcoming of Prophet Elijah and opened the apartment door. In an instant she was transferred back to Poland 1942 as Chaya Abramowicz, a 13-year-old teenager living in a small village with her "aunt" Gitl and Gitl's brother, Shmuel. At Shmuel's wedding, Nazis came and arrested the Jews, but having learned about the Holocaust, Hannah tried to warn everyone to flee. No one listened, and they all followed the Nazis to "resettlement". They were sent to the concentration camp, and there they were bared of their clothes, shaven, given rags, and new "names". Their new names consisted of either a J, for Jew, or G, for Greek, followed by many numbers. At their first meal, Chaya met Rivka, a 10 year old girl who knew how to live day by day. Everyone were given jobs, and they had a choice to either do the jobs well, or become "Chosen". The Choosing came once in a while, where the commandant came and sent everyone who was ill, elderly, or lazy into Lilith's Cave to be burnt. She followed Rivka, who lived everyday as it was, and she remained alive for a period of time. One day though, Hannah's friends, Shifre, Esther, and Rivka was chosen to make up a full load. Hannah didn't want Rivka to die just like that, so she told her to run while she took the place of Rivka and died a hero. As she walked through the gates of Lilith's Cave, Hannah realised that she was staring at the door back in New York, at her grandparents' house. Now Hannah will never forget because she understood, at last she understood.


At that time and place, the people believe she is Chaya Abramowicz, who is recovering from ], the fever that killed Chaya's parents a few months ago. The strange remarks Hannah/Chaya makes about the future and her inability to recognize Chaya's aunt Gitl and uncle Shmuel are blamed on the fever.
==Characters in "The Devil's Arithmetic"==
===Present===
*''Hannah Stern'' &ndash; the main protagonist
*''Aaron Stern'' &ndash; (Hannah's brother) (Ron-Ron)
*''Aunt Eva'' &ndash; (Hannah's great-aunt, known as ''Rivka'' when she was a child in Poland)
*''Grandpa Will'' &ndash; (Hannah's Grandfather was know as ''Wolfe'' when he was a child in Poland), he is Aunt Eva's Brother.


At Uncle Shmuel's wedding, the ] come to transport the entire population of the village to a ] near Donavin, and only Hannah knows all the terrors they will face: starvation, mistreatment, forced labor, and finally execution.
===1942, Poland===
*''Chaya Abramowicz'' &ndash; (the girl whom Hannah becomes)
*''Gitl Abramowicz'' &ndash; (Chaya's aunt)
*''Shmuel Abramowicz'' &ndash; (Chaya's Uncle, Gitl's brother)
*''Fayge'' &ndash; (Shmuel's fiancee)
*''Rivka'' &ndash; (Chaya's friend from the ], changes name to ''Eva'' when she comes to the ] after the war)


Hannah and the other women are stripped, shaved, and tattooed with a number. Hannah and the other women are forced to dig trenches in the camp. Hannah struggles to survive at the camp, with the help of a girl named Rivka. Uncle Shmuel and some other men try to escape; the men are caught and then shot as everyone watches. Fayge, who was going to be married to Shmuel, is killed because she runs to Shmuel when he is about to be shot with the men that were caught. Yitzchak escapes and lives in the forest with the partisans, fighting the Germans.
• This novel begins with Hannah, the main character, in modern times.
• She is at a Passover Seder with her family.
• She is apathetic toward her grandfather's stories.
• His stories reflect time spent in a concentration camp.
• Hannah also is “tired of remembering”
• Hannah does not like Passover, nor the Seder, so she is very bitter.
• Hannah is picked to open the door to symbolically welcome in Elijah
• When she does this, she is whisked away to a rural village in Poland during WWII.
• The little village is called a shtetl.
• A shtetl is a small Jewish town in Eastern Europe.
• She tries desperately to explain that she is not Chaya, but Hannah, from modern day times.
• Chaya is now living with a new aunt and new uncle
• Their names are Aunt Gitl and Uncle Shmuel
• After unsuccessfully trying to convince her new “family”, she gives up and accepts that she is now Chaya.
• Chaya is a Jewish peasant girl.
• Chaya has recently been extremely ill, near death.
• She used to live in another city, with her parents.
• The disease that had Chaya so sick, took her parents life, ending her up in the new family.
• Chaya’s new Uncle is getting married to a girl named Fayge.
• On their way to the shtetl where the marriage will be, Chaya realizes what year it is.
• She realizes she is in the year 1942 and about to be taken to a concentration camp.
• Chaya and her new family are dragged off to Auschwitz.
• They endure a 4-day trip on trains to the concentration camp.
• They are given no food, water, or bathroom breaks.
• Many people died, and many got extremely sick.
• Above the gate to Auschwitz, it reads, “Arbeit Mach Freit.”
• This means, “Work makes you free.”
• As if that were true in the time of the holocaust for German Jews
• While at the camp, Chaya makes a good friend named Rivka.
• Rivka helps her survive by giving her tips.
• Chaya and her aunt are safe, but the others are shot.
• After many hardships, Rivka is “Chosen”
• Being “Chosen” means that you are getting sent to the gas chambers.
• Chaya takes Rivka's bandana, and tells her to run.
• Chaya has just exchanged Rivka's life, for her own.
• Chaya is now sent to the gas chambers, where she is murdered.
• In the next millisecond, Chaya/Hannah finds herself back at home.
• She is standing right where she was when she was put into her terror.
• Hannah is relieved to be back with her family.
• She is, however, very curious about her rendevous.
• Hannah discovers that she is related to her friend from Auschwitz (Rivka).
• Hanna finds out that she ended up giving her life for her Aunt.
• Hannah is now willing to remember.
• She now knows the pain that her grandfather feels.
• It is a happy ending, describing an unhappy event.


Later, when Hannah, Rivka, Esther, and Shifre are working, a guard overhears them talking instead of working. Shifre tries to reassure the guard they have been working, but he takes them anyway and leaves Hannah by herself. As the three are about to leave, Hannah takes Rivka's place by putting on her ]. Since the guards don't know their faces, this goes unnoticed by the officer. The girls are led to the gas chamber. She is then transported back to her family's Seder. Aunt Eva calls her over. Hannah looks at Aunt Eva's number; it is the same as Rivka's. Hannah (when she was Chaya) was really the girl she was named after, Rivka was Aunt Eva, and Rivka's brother, Wolfe, was Grandpa Will. (Aunt Eva said that they changed their names when they got to America.)
==Main themes==
{{Sect-stub}}


The epilogue at the end of the novel reveals that when the camp was liberated, the survivors were Gitl (weighing a mere {{convert|73|lb|kg|disp=sqbr}}), Yitzchak, Rivka, and Leye (a worker in the camp) and her baby. Gitl and Yitzchak immigrate to Israel where Yitzchak becomes a politician while Gitl organizes a rescue mission that is dedicated to salvaging the lives of young survivors and locating family members. The organization is named after Chaya, her niece that died a hero.
{{endspoiler}}


==Awards and nominations== == Themes ==
Hannah experiences a ] to experience the past. The novel employs ] as a plot device and both a method for remembering and for the reader to more deeply feel the story. Yolen believed children would be more likely to engage with the past if the novel featured a contemporary child who went back in time and experienced history themselves.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=An Experimental Act |url=https://www.spectacle.org/396/scifi/exper.html |access-date=2020-12-18 |website=www.spectacle.org}}</ref>
''The Devil's Arithmetic'' received the ].
== Reception ==
''The Devil's Arithmetic'' received a ] from Kirkus, which called it "a triumphantly moving book".<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jane-yolen/the-devils-arithmetic/|title=THE DEVIL'S ARITHMETIC {{!}} Kirkus Reviews|language=en}}</ref> '']'' called the book "brave and powerful".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-670-81027-7|access-date=2020-12-18|website=www.publishersweekly.com|title=Children's Book Review: The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen, Author Viking Books $16.99 (170p) ISBN 978-0-670-81027-7}}</ref>


In '']'', Cynthia Samuels said that Yolen's use of the time travel convention was brought to "a new and ambitious level".<ref>{{Cite news|last=Samuels|first=Cynthia|date=1988-11-13|title=CHILDREN'S BOOKS; HANNAH LEARNS TO REMEMBER (Published 1988)|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/13/books/children-s-books-hannah-learns-to-remember.html|access-date=2020-12-18|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>
==Film, TV or theatrical adaptations==
It was made into a ] ] starring ] and ] in ].


''The Devil's Arithmetic'' was nominated for the ] in 1988<ref>{{cite web |date=May 18, 2003 |title=(Awards & Nominations) |url=http://janeyolen.com/awards/ |access-date=April 29, 2012 |publisher=Jane Yolen}}</ref> and won the ] (in the ] category) in 1989.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Past Winners |url=https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/awards/national-jewish-book-awards/past-winners?category=30737 |access-date=2020-01-20 |website=Jewish Book Council |language=en}}</ref> The script for the television movie was also nominated for a ].<ref name=":0" />
]
]
]
]


== Adaptations ==
The novel was adapted into a 1999 ] television ], starring ] and ].<ref name=":0">{{cite web|date=April 15, 2000|title=Year 2000 Nebula Nominations (Press Release)|url=http://www.sfwa.org/members/nebula/NEBPub1.doc|url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20121201233816/http://www.sfwa.org/members/nebula/NEBPub1.doc|archive-date=December 1, 2012|access-date=February 21, 2011|publisher=SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America) }}</ref>


== Further reading ==
{{hist-novel-stub}}

* Weil, E. (1993). "The Door to Lilith's Cave: Memory and Imagination in Jane Yolen's Holocaust Novels." '']''. 5(2), 90.

==References==
{{Portal|Children and Young Adult Literature}}
{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Devils Arithmetic, Ha}}
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Latest revision as of 16:36, 29 December 2024

1988 children's time slip novel by Jane Yolen

This article is about the novel. For the TV movie, see The Devil's Arithmetic (film).
The Devil's Arithmetic
AuthorJane Yolen
GenreScience fiction, fantasy, time slip
PublisherViking
Publication date1988
Publication placeUnited States of America
ISBN0-670-81027-4

The Devil's Arithmetic is a historical fiction time slip novel written by American author Jane Yolen and published in 1988. The book is about Hannah Stern, a Jewish girl who lives in New Rochelle, New York, and is sent back in time to experience the Holocaust. During a Passover Seder, Hannah is transported back in time to 1941 Poland, during World War II, where she is sent to a concentration camp and learns the importance of knowing about the past.

Background

Author Jane Yolen, who is Jewish, noted that she had considered writing about the Holocaust for some time, but was overwhelmed. She was convinced to pursue the subject by an editor of hers at the time, who was a Rabbi's wife. The Devil's Arithmetic is the author's first book that deals explicitly with Jewish themes.

While writing the novel, Yolen spent a week at an Indianapolis private school; when she explained to students about her forthcoming work, one student asked if Yolen had made up the events of the novel, based on the real story of the Holocaust.

Plot

Hannah Stern is a Jewish preteen girl living in the present day. She is bored by her relative's stories about the past, is not looking forward to the Passover Seder, and is tired of her religion. When Hannah symbolically opens the door for the prophet Elijah, she is transported back in time to a shtetl on the Polish/German border in 1942, during World War II. Hannah is not immediately aware of the time period.

At that time and place, the people believe she is Chaya Abramowicz, who is recovering from cholera, the fever that killed Chaya's parents a few months ago. The strange remarks Hannah/Chaya makes about the future and her inability to recognize Chaya's aunt Gitl and uncle Shmuel are blamed on the fever.

At Uncle Shmuel's wedding, the Nazis come to transport the entire population of the village to a death camp near Donavin, and only Hannah knows all the terrors they will face: starvation, mistreatment, forced labor, and finally execution.

Hannah and the other women are stripped, shaved, and tattooed with a number. Hannah and the other women are forced to dig trenches in the camp. Hannah struggles to survive at the camp, with the help of a girl named Rivka. Uncle Shmuel and some other men try to escape; the men are caught and then shot as everyone watches. Fayge, who was going to be married to Shmuel, is killed because she runs to Shmuel when he is about to be shot with the men that were caught. Yitzchak escapes and lives in the forest with the partisans, fighting the Germans.

Later, when Hannah, Rivka, Esther, and Shifre are working, a guard overhears them talking instead of working. Shifre tries to reassure the guard they have been working, but he takes them anyway and leaves Hannah by herself. As the three are about to leave, Hannah takes Rivka's place by putting on her babushka. Since the guards don't know their faces, this goes unnoticed by the officer. The girls are led to the gas chamber. She is then transported back to her family's Seder. Aunt Eva calls her over. Hannah looks at Aunt Eva's number; it is the same as Rivka's. Hannah (when she was Chaya) was really the girl she was named after, Rivka was Aunt Eva, and Rivka's brother, Wolfe, was Grandpa Will. (Aunt Eva said that they changed their names when they got to America.)

The epilogue at the end of the novel reveals that when the camp was liberated, the survivors were Gitl (weighing a mere 73 pounds ), Yitzchak, Rivka, and Leye (a worker in the camp) and her baby. Gitl and Yitzchak immigrate to Israel where Yitzchak becomes a politician while Gitl organizes a rescue mission that is dedicated to salvaging the lives of young survivors and locating family members. The organization is named after Chaya, her niece that died a hero.

Themes

Hannah experiences a time slip to experience the past. The novel employs time travel as a plot device and both a method for remembering and for the reader to more deeply feel the story. Yolen believed children would be more likely to engage with the past if the novel featured a contemporary child who went back in time and experienced history themselves.

Reception

The Devil's Arithmetic received a starred review from Kirkus, which called it "a triumphantly moving book". Publishers Weekly called the book "brave and powerful".

In The New York Times, Cynthia Samuels said that Yolen's use of the time travel convention was brought to "a new and ambitious level".

The Devil's Arithmetic was nominated for the Nebula award for best novella in 1988 and won the National Jewish Book Award (in the children's literature category) in 1989. The script for the television movie was also nominated for a Nebula Award.

Adaptations

The novel was adapted into a 1999 Showtime television film with the same title, starring Kirsten Dunst and Brittany Murphy.

Further reading

References

  1. Yolen, Jane. "Devil's Arithmetic, The – Jane Yolen". Retrieved December 18, 2020.
  2. ^ Yolen, Jane (1989–1990). "Speech Delivered at the Sydney Taylor Book Awards". Judaica Librarianship. 5 (1): 52.
  3. "An Experimental Act". www.spectacle.org. Retrieved December 18, 2020.
  4. THE DEVIL'S ARITHMETIC | Kirkus Reviews.
  5. "Children's Book Review: The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen, Author Viking Books $16.99 (170p) ISBN 978-0-670-81027-7". www.publishersweekly.com. Retrieved December 18, 2020.
  6. Samuels, Cynthia (November 13, 1988). "CHILDREN'S BOOKS; HANNAH LEARNS TO REMEMBER (Published 1988)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 18, 2020.
  7. "(Awards & Nominations)". Jane Yolen. May 18, 2003. Retrieved April 29, 2012.
  8. "Past Winners". Jewish Book Council. Retrieved January 20, 2020.
  9. ^ "Year 2000 Nebula Nominations (Press Release)". SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America). April 15, 2000. Archived from the original on December 1, 2012. Retrieved February 21, 2011.
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