The Devil’s Arithmetic - Jane Yolen

Written by Jane Yolen
Read by Barbara Rosenblatt
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 192 Kbps
Unabridged

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Publisher: Recorded Books, p1996, c1988.
Age 12 & up
Duration: 4 hours 51 minutes

Booklist Review
Taking a risk, Yolen blends elements of fantasy and adventure with intense images of concentration camps, manipulating them into an unusual coming-of-age story. Bored by the lengthy Passover service and impatient, cranky, and slightly tipsy from her first taste of ceremonial wine, 12-year-old Hannah opens the door to the prophet Elijah as tradition dictates, expecting to see only an empty hall and the apartment across the way. Rather, she is swept into the past, back to 1942, where she becomes– instead of selfish, petulant Hannah from modern day New York– Chaya Abramowicz from Poland, soon to depart on a journey toward extermination. An interweaving of detail and recurring imagery mark Hannah’s passage from the 1980s to a tiny Polish village, to a crowded boxcar, to an unnamed camp. The scenario is brutal. Its characters convincingly drawn to type: Gitl, fierce, wise, gentle, who laughs in the face of terror; Rivka, a tough survivor with an unshakable faith in God; and Hannah/Chaya, petulant child, denying her heritage, then sacrificing herself for another. Yolen’s time-travel scheme is cleverly orchestrated; her plot fits together like a carefully cut puzzle. And while some teenagers will be more caught up by its tidy perfection than by the horror Yolen seeks to convey, they will still come away with a sense of tragic history that both disturbs and compels. An afterword gives further shape to both the history and Yolen’s personal feelings. Gr. 8-12. SZ.