# The Devil's Arithmetic

**Author:** Jane Yolen
**Lexile:** 730L
**Grade range:** Grades 5–8
**Age range:** 10–14
**First published:** 1988
**Page count:** 170
**Genre:** Historical Fiction
**ISBN-13:** `9780142401095`
**ISBN-10:** `0142401099`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/the-devils-arithmetic
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Hannah, a present-day Jewish girl tired of hearing about the past, opens the door during a Passover seder and is transported to a Polish village in 1942. Taken to a Nazi concentration camp, she lives the history she once dismissed. Frequently assigned in middle-school Holocaust units for its accessible reading level and difficult subject matter.

## Themes

- Holocaust
- memory
- Jewish identity
- history
- remembrance

## Content notes

- Holocaust violence
- death
- trauma

Common Sense Media age recommendation: 11+

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