The Devil's Arithmetic Katie I's Post

The Devil’s Arithmetic begins with Passover Seder in which Hannah is upset she must leave her best friends Easter dinner. On the ride over to her grandparents she tells her mother she had forgotten it was Passover and would rather stay at her friends. Her mother asks her how she could forget something that was so important to their family. This remembering becomes an important them of the story. Once she is at her grandparents they begin the Seder dinner and she begins to tell the reader what her grandparents what they experienced during the Holocaust and how much she is embarrassed by the way her grandfather acts when something triggers his memory. When Hannah opens the door during the Seder to let in the prophet Elijah she is transported to a small village in Poland in 1944. Once in this village she is soon captured to the Nazis and transported to a death camp. Once at this death camp she meets and befriends a young girl Rivka. When Rivka is selected to go to the death chamber Hannah goes in her place and as the gas chamber closes she is transported back to her family right when and where she left them. Hannah can remember both the past and the present and now had a greater understanding for the need to remember the Holocaust.

Yolen, as an insider author has a way of bring the Seder to life without leaving readers who are not Jewish confused. This book also brings in the use of some Yiddish which makes the story more authentic. There are numerous books out today about the holocaust and just as many about children today who have grandparents who survived the holocaust. This book however presents these two stories in completely original way. It shows the reader a connection they could have made but it is done in a thoughtful way. This book shows positive Jewish content in both the past and the present as talked about in the Silver article. This is a new and different way to present the story of the holocaust and an extremely powerful one.