Title: The Devil’s Arithmetic
Author: Jane Yolen
Description/Summary:
Hannah doesn’t understand why she has to celebrate every Jewish holiday with her grandparents. Why cant she celebrate Easter instead of Passover? Or Christmas instead of Hanukkah, just like her other friends?
Her grandparents are Holocaust survivors, and her grandfather has incredibly extreme reactions towards any mention of it, and Hannah doesn’t understand why we should remember. Then, when she is asked to open the door for Elijah at the seder, she finds herself in a shtetl in Poland, where everything is different...
She discovered that this ‘Chaya’, that everyone seems to think she is, has just lost her parents, and recovered from the sickness that killed them. She used to live in Lublin, but now lives with her aunt and uncle, Gitl and Shmuel. Suddenly, her life turns upside down, when she finds that the year is 1942, and that her and all her family being transported into a concentration camp, where only she knows what will happen, and how many Jews will be killed. Hannah now understands why it is so important to remember, she will never forget... If she survives.
Recommendation:
I recommend this book to kids from the age of 10-12. It was an easy read, but it gets very sad at some parts. I also recommend this book to people who like historical fiction, because it did happen, just not exactly in Hannah’s story.
Where to Find it:
You can find this book in our classroom library, the school library, and at Chapters.
Back of the book:
When Hannah opens the door during Passover Seder to symbolically welcome the prophet Elijah, she suddenly finds herself in the unfamiliar world of a Polish village in the 1940’s. Hannah had always complained about listening to her relatives tell the same stories of the Holocaust over and over but now she finds herself in a terrifying situation. The Nazi soldiers have come to take the villagers away, and only Hannah can guess where they are going.
Joelle 6a
No comments:
Post a Comment