THE DEVIL'S ARITHMETIC Viking 1988 ISBN# 0-670-81027-4 Viking hardcover ISBN# 0-14-034535-3 Puffin trade paperback ISBN# 0-14-240109-9 Puffin Modern Classics paperback

Puffin Modern Classics

I had thought about doing a book on the Holocaust for a long time, but quite frankly the idea overwhelmed me. Finally one of my editors, who was a rabbi's wife at the time, persuaded me to confront the task. Writers and storytellers are the memory of a civilization, and we who are alive now really must not forget what happened in that awful time or else we may be doomed to repeat it. This book is about a Jewish teenager who--much like me at that age--hated the idea of having to remember so much Jewish history and ritual. At a family seder, she opens the door to Elijah and finds herself whirled back in time to a Polish Jewish shtetl in the 1940s. There, though she alone understands what will happen to the villagers, she is taken with them to a concentration camp. This is a story of the quiet heroism in the camps and why we must bear witness to history. There is a German/Austrian edition of the book.

It won the Sydney Taylor Award from the Association of Jewish Libraries, the Jewish Book Council Award, the Maud Hart Lovelace Book Award, and was a Nebula Honor Book. It was also on the 1992 Kentucky Bluegrass Master List, a Florida Children's Book Award nomination in '91-92 for grades 6-8, and was on the 1994 Illinois Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award master list. In 2007 it was named the Children's Literature Association's 2008 Honor Book for the Phoenix Award "given to the author. . .for a book for children originally published in English that did not win a major award at the time of its publication twenty years earlier" but has stood the test of time.

The book was made into a movie for the Showtime TV channel by Dustin Hoffman and Mimi Rogers. It starred Kirsten Dunst. Robert Avrech wrote a very strong and moving screenplay and Donna Deitch directed it brilliantly on a shoestring budget. For their work Robert won an Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Children's Special and Donna won an Emmy for Outstanding Directing in a Children's Special. The film also won "The Wilbur Award." This is given for outstanding communication of religious values in public media: print, film, video, broadcasting and cable. The Wilbur has been given since 1949. The video is available from Blockbuster.

Teachers please note: Dr. Steve Sunderland, Professor of Social Work at the University of Cincinnati, has sent me a series of emails about using Devil's Arithmetic, which I found both provocative and moving.

Here is an email from a sudent named, Nicole, quoted by kind permission:

"My name is nicole and I was in a speech competition, my coach
wanted me to be very emotional about my speech because it was about the
holocaust...I tried very hard and was emotional but she said I wasn't
emotional enough. She said I needed to feel the pain and suffering. so she
suggested your book, 'the Devils Arithmatic'... I went and bought the book and
read it....the next practice I almost made my coach cry. She asked me how I
got the feel of the speech in just a couple days...I said "I read The Devils
Arithmatic by Jane Yolen"...she was very impressed..your book made me see what
the victims of the holocaust actually went through. Thank you for making
that book. It changed my look of things. made me not take as many things for
granted. That year I got 4th place, but in my heart I got 1st because I
could feel the pain that those victims felt thanks to your book. The tears
that came out of my eyes weren't fake that year, they were real. That contest
was 2 years ago in 5th grade...now I am in 7th and 13 yrs old and still love
that book and remember what it was like."

There is a "Literature Unit Plan" available from Teacher's Pet Publications, both printed and on a CD.

There is also a  Multicultural Thematic guide from Cambios.

See a Florida State University English Education Program PowerPoint presentation on teaching the book.

A Teacher's guide to the holocaust using parallel reading of Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor and The Devil's Arithmetic.

The Jewish Education Center of Cleveland has a teaching guide to the movie.

An article I wrote about writing the book.

An interview with Kirsten Dunst on acting in the movie.

Phyllis Harrison of St. Christopher School, Baldwin, NY has students write poems about Devil's Arithmetic. See two of these poems.

       Available in paperback.

What reviewers have said: "[Readers] will come away with a sense of tragic history that both disturbs and compels." -- Booklist

"Those who read this book will never forget; and, just as important, they will know why we must never forget. In a world that includes criminal governments like those that have slaughtered innocents in Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Chile, I would like to think that this generation of children will all read The Devil's Arithmetic ..." -- Orson Scott Card in Fantasy & Science Fiction

In a very long review in the NY Times, November 1988, Cynthia Samuels, political producer of the Today Show, concluded: "This is a book parents should want to read first. And while many young people who read it may turn to their parents for interpretations and comfort, the story's impact seems vastly different from that of, say, Elie Wiesel's ''Night,'' another book about the Holocaust they might encounter. His was a testament - an offering of evidence to a world that could not fathom such evil. Ms. Yolen's novel is more of a bridge to the receding past, and it concludes on a note of redemption and love. Sooner or later all our children must know what happened in the days of the Holocaust. ''The Devil's Arithmetic'' offers an affecting way to begin."

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