Jane Yolen (1939–2026)

For me, picking up a book about the Holocaust is a bit like plunging into an icy-cold lake, on a warm summer day. Not because the experience is refreshing - far from it! - but because there is this sense, while standing on the edge, poised to take that fateful step, of drawing back. An instinctive recoiling from what I know will be a sudden and shocking submersion in a different world - one that I'm never entirely prepared to enter, that I fear will swallow me whole, as I sink like a stone, show more down and down into the cold, dark depths.

Since the day I stumbled across my first Holocaust memoir - Sara Zyskind's Stolen Years, which chronicles the author's time in the Lodz Ghetto, and then the Auschwitz-Birkenau death-camp - the year I was eleven, I have had an abiding interest in this terrible episode of history, and a desire to understand what made it, and other genocides, possible. I have, over the years, read numerous survivor testimonies, and devoted much time to considering the nature of human evil, the ubiquity of human suffering, and the historical, cultural, and psychological factors that allow them to flourish. I believe in remembering, in bearing witness, and - to the best of my limited ability - in seeking to oppose and change those factors which facilitate such atrocities.

But no one (amongst the "sane," anyway) can remember all the time. I don't spend every waking hour contemplating these issues, and I don't desire to. Which isn't to say I "forget" them, per se, just that the intimacy of my knowledge, of my remembering, varies greatly. I always "remember" the Holocaust. But the remembering involved in sociological analysis, and the remembering that comes of witnessing - even if only through the printed word - a vulnerable young child, violently separated from his only kin, tossed about in a maelstrom born of adult depravity, depart this world through the doors of the gas chamber, and the smokestacks of those infernal human-powered ovens, are two very different things. To read a book about the Holocaust, be it fact or fiction, is to embrace that second kind of remembering, to become acquainted, once again, with madness.

And that seems like an entirely appropriate jumping-off point to me, because this book, this children's novel, is about nothing so much as memory, and our (very natural) reluctance to embrace it. It is the story of a contemporary Jewish American girl who, reluctantly attending her family's Passover Seder, opens the door for the Prophet Elijah, and finds herself in 1940s Poland. Hannah Stern of New Rochelle (five minutes from where I myself live) is now Chaya Abramowicz of Lublin, and a suburban girl who has always lived a life of privilege and plenty is about to discover a world of unimaginable loss and privation. For the small Jewish shtetl in which she finds herself is about to be liquidated - transported to one of the Nazi death camps...

The Devil's Arithmetic is a powerful argument for the importance - the necessity - of remembering, but it is also a meditation on the difficulty of convincing others of the truth, and the limitations of knowledge itself, when confronting the full power of evil unleashed. Hannah/Chaya knows what is coming - she knows what those Nazis and their trucks in front of the village shul mean, she knows where the cattle cars are headed. But although she attempts to warn the others, tries desperately to convince them to flee, no one will believe her. She is, after all, just a child - a child known to say odd things, because of a recent illness - and what she is saying is so unimaginably terrifying to her listeners, that she is silenced - hushed by her "Aunt" Gitl.

Eventually, she is silenced by the loss of memory itself. Horrified, the first night in camp, by the showers toward which she and the other women are being herded, convinced that they are really the gas chambers about which she had learned, in her other life, Hannah/Chaya once again attempts to warn the others. But finally, perceiving that they cannot hear her words, that she is only robbing them of their last protection, robbing them of hope, she desists, only to find this silence reinforced by a horrifying inability to recall who she really is, and what lies ahead:

When the man came to Hannah, she bit her lip so as not to cry and kept her eyes closed the entire time. She concentrated on what was to happen next - after the showers and the hair-cutting, remembering from the lessons in Holocaust history in school. But as the scissors snip-snapped through her hair and the razor shaved the rest, she realized with a sudden awful panic that she could no longer recall anything from the past. "I cannot remember," she whispered to herself. "I cannot remember." She'd been shorn of memory as brutally as she'd been shorn of her hair, without permission, without reason. Opening her eyes, she stared at the floor. Clots of wet hair lay all about: dark hair, light hair, short hair, long hair, and two pale braids. "Gone, all gone," she thought again wildly, no longer even sure what was gone, what she was mourning."

Hannah, the girl who didn't want to remember the past, has now become Chaya, the girl who cannot remember the future - a future the Nazis are intent on destroying.

Jane Yolen has created a powerful story in The Devil's Arithmetic, one that will draw young readers in, allowing them - through the plot device of a modern child traveling back through time - to experience the terror of the Holocaust in a uniquely intimate way. That it is necessary for them do so - to enter into this strange and horrifying world of the past, and become one with the victims - is borne out, not just by the maxim that "those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it," but by the reality that we are all vulnerable, not just to those forces which might make us victims, but to those which might make us monsters. As Fayge says, at one point, quoting from a story about the Ba'al Shem Tov: "The enemy will always be with you. He will be in the shadow of your dreams and in your living flesh, for he is the other part of yourself."

This "other part" always needs combating. What better way to do this, than to witness the terrible cruelty and suffering that result, when it is unleashed? So... take a deep breath, grab hold of your courage, fix your eyes on the truth, and plunge into that dark water. It has to be done. It always has to be done. And it always has to be done again. show less

Young Gib had always had a special relationship with his beloved "Uncle Emily," a retiring poet who liked to wear white dresses, and who shared his appreciation for things like frogs and butterflies. When she gives him a poem, called The Bumble-Bee's Religion, to be read in his class, Gib finds himself defending her against the insults of a classroom bully. But will they approve of his actions at home? Should he tell his family the entire story? It takes another of Uncle Emily's special show more poems to show him the way...

Based upon the life of poet Emily Dickinson, who had a close and loving relationship with her nephews, Uncle Emily is a sensitive examination of family love and loyalty, as well as the power of words - of poetry - to guide and shape us. "Tell all the Truth, but tell it slant," Uncle Emily's poems begins, pointing Gib to the fact that words must be chosen with care. Jane Yolen's free-verse narrative, accompanied by Nancy Carpenter's appealing pen and ink illustrations, will draw young readers into the story, raising important questions about poetry, truth, and the nature of communication. Like my friend Krista, who recommended this one to me, I've come away with a desire to renew my acquaintance with Dickinson! show less

Note: I received an Advance Reading Copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review.

Even though I own several works by Jane Yolen (thanks to Humble Bundle) I hadn’t read anything by her before. I was still intrigued by this work up on NetGalley and couldn’t resist requesting it. I’m glad I did, because I think I found myself a new writer whose style I love.

How to Fracture a Fairy Tale is a collection of previously published short stories, all in the realm of fairy tales. show more However, these aren’t the ones you know and love from bedside story time. These tales are fractured and changed. Some have a different viewpoint (Granny Rumple, in which Rumpelstiltskin is a Jewish money lender), some are a bit (or a lot) more dark (Allerleirauh and The Gwynhfar) and some are just a short bit (Once a Good Man). The stories are accompanied by notes and poems, one for each story. About half the poems have been published before, the rest are new to this collection.

If you don’t know Yolen’s style, based on this book alone, I’d compare her to Neil Gaiman. Like Gaiman, she uses existing stories, myths and legends and weaves her own tale, and like Gaiman, she is a storyteller. Not surprisingly, one of the stories was even written for an anthology Gaiman was making of Sandman inspired stories (but did not end up in it). If you are looking for fairy tales with a twist, for stories that could be told at the fireside, for something on a cold winter night, look no further than this collection. Four out of five stars from me. show less

Yolen and Stemple honor the ways many cultures spread light, literally and figuratively, during the darkest days of the year.

Lyrical verse reflects on the commonalities shared by many traditions, while the illustrations highlight a diverse array of winter holidays. The juxtaposition of the universal and the specific embodies the book’s profound message: The ways we are different can unify us, and both our differences and our similarities are worth celebrating. Various groupings of family show more and friends observe Diwali, Winter Solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Bodhi Day, and Lunar New Year; amid the glow of rangolis, kinaras, lighted trees, menorahs, lanterns, and moonlight, they spend time with loved ones, decorate, sing, eat, and remember deceased ancestors. Unobtrusive footnotes provide a brief definition of each holiday, with longer descriptions in the backmatter explaining a few of the symbols and rituals. Rife with details for observant readers, the artwork sets a cozy tone, whether portraying families crowded round the kitchen table or outside by a roaring fire. The celebrants include people of many different ethnicities, abilities, and ages, and they gather in groups of various sizes and compositions. With its emphasis on inclusivity, this is an excellent choice for classrooms or libraries looking to discuss winter holidays.

Luminous. (Informational picture book. 4-8)

-Kirkus Review show less