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28-521: Jane Hyatt Yolen (born February 11, 1939) is an American writer of fantasy, science fiction, and children's books. She is the author or editor of more than 400 books, of which the best known is The Devil's Arithmetic , a Holocaust novella. Her other works include the Nebula Award −winning short story "Sister Emily's Lightship", the novelette "Lost Girls", Owl Moon , The Emperor and the Kite , and

56-593: A BA from Smith College in 1960 and a master's degree in Education from the University of Massachusetts in 1978. After graduating she moved back to New York City. Although Yolen considered herself a poet and a journalist/nonfiction writer, to her surprise she became a children's book writer. Her first published book was Pirates in Petticoats , which she sold on her 22nd birthday, February 11, 1961. During

84-525: A house in Scotland, where she lives for a few months each year. Regarding the similarities between her 1991 novel Wizard's Hall and the Harry Potter series, Yolen has commented: I'm pretty sure [ J. K. Rowling ] never read my book. We were both using fantasy tropes—the wizard school, the pictures on the wall that move. I happen to have a hero whose name was Henry, not Harry. He also had

112-491: A method for remembering and for the reader to more deeply feel the story. Yolen believed children would be more likely to engage with the past if the novel featured a contemporary child who went back in time and experienced history themselves. The Devil's Arithmetic received a starred review from Kirkus, which called it "a triumphantly moving book". Publishers Weekly called the book "brave and powerful". In The New York Times , Cynthia Samuels said that Yolen's use of

140-562: A newspaper for her apartment with her brother that she sold for five cents a copy. She was accepted to Music and Art High School . During the summer prior to that semester, she attended a Vermont summer camp , which was her first involvement with the Society of Friends (Quakers). Her family also moved to a ranch house in Westport, Connecticut , where she attended Bedford Junior high for ninth grade, and then Staples High School . She received

168-420: A red-headed best friend and a girl who was also his best friend—though my girl was black, not white. And there was a wicked wizard who was trying to destroy the school, who was once a teacher at the school. But those are all fantasy tropes ...There's even a book that came out way before hers where children go off to a witch school or a wizard school by going on a mysterious train that no one else can see except

196-461: Is not immediately aware of the time period. At that time and place, the people believe she is Chaya Abramowicz, who is recovering from cholera , the fever that killed Chaya's parents a few months ago. The strange remarks Hannah/Chaya makes about the future and her inability to recognize Chaya's aunt Gitl and uncle Shmuel are blamed on the fever. At Uncle Shmuel's wedding, the Nazis come to transport

224-473: Is sent back in time to experience the Holocaust . During a Passover Seder , Hannah is transported back in time to 1941 Poland , during World War II , where she is sent to a concentration camp and learns the importance of knowing about the past. Author Jane Yolen, who is Jewish , noted that she had considered writing about the Holocaust for some time, but was overwhelmed. She was convinced to pursue

252-559: Is the first child of Isabell Berlin Yolen, a psychiatric social worker who became a full-time mother and homemaker upon Yolen's birth, and Will Hyatt Yolen, a journalist who wrote columns at the time for New York newspapers, and whose family emigrated from Ukraine to the United States. Both of Yolen's parents were Jewish, and raised her secular-Jewish. Isabell also did volunteer work, and wrote short stories in her spare time. However, she

280-416: Is the same as Rivka's. Hannah (when she was Chaya) was really the girl she was named after, Rivka was Aunt Eva, and Rivka's brother, Wolfe, was Grandpa Will. (Aunt Eva said that they changed their names when they got to America.) The epilogue at the end of the novel reveals that when the camp was liberated, the survivors were Gitl (weighing a mere 73 pounds [33 kg]), Yitzchak, Rivka, and Leye (a worker in

308-642: The Commander Toad series. She has collaborated on works with all three of her children, most extensively with Adam Stemple. Yolen delivered the inaugural Alice G. Smith Lecture at the University of South Florida in 1989. In 2012 she became the first woman to give the Andrew Lang lecture . Yolen published her 400th book in early 2021, Bear Outside . Jane Hyatt Yolen was born on February 11, 1939, at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan . She

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336-529: The 1960s, Yolen held editorial positions at various magazines and publishers in New York City, including Gold Medal Books, Routledge Books, and Alfred A. Knopf Juvenile Books. From 1990 to 1996 she ran her own young adult fiction imprint, Jane Yolen Books, at Harcourt Brace . She has co-written two books with her son, the writer and musician Adam Stemple , Pay the Piper and Troll Bridge , both part of

364-514: The Holocaust. Hannah Stern is a Jewish preteen girl living in the present day. She is bored by her relative's stories about the past, is not looking forward to the Passover Seder , and is tired of her religion. When Hannah symbolically opens the door for the prophet Elijah , she is transported back in time to a shtetl on the Polish / German border in 1942, during World War II . Hannah

392-523: The Piper was the winner of the 2006 Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book . Stemple's short stories include a series of historical whodunnits set in feudal Japan , featuring a samurai master and apprentice as a sleuthing duo, for the historical fiction magazine Paradox . Among Stemple's other published short stories, "A Piece of Flesh" was chosen as one of ten short stories included in The Year's Best SF and Fantasy for Teens (2005). Stemple

420-650: The Rock 'n' Roll Fairy Tale series. She also wrote lyrics for the song "Robin's Complaint," recorded on the 1994 album Antler Dance by Stemple's band Boiled in Lead . As of 2021, Yolen has written more than 400 books. In 1962, Yolen married David W. Stemple. They had three children, including musician Adam Stemple , and six grandchildren. David Stemple died in March 2006. Yolen lives in Hatfield, Massachusetts . She also owns

448-682: The birth of Yolen's brother, Steve. When Will joined the Army as a Second Lieutenant to fight in England during World War II , Yolen, her mother and brother lived with her grandparents, Danny and Dan, in Newport News, Virginia . After the war, the family moved back to Manhattan, living on Central Park West and 97th Street until Yolen turned 13. She attended PS 93 , where she enjoyed writing and singing, and became friends with future radio presenter Susan Stamberg . She also engaged writing by creating

476-408: The camp) and her baby. Gitl and Yitzchak immigrate to Israel where Yitzchak becomes a politician while Gitl organizes a rescue mission that is dedicated to salvaging the lives of young survivors and locating family members. The organization is named after Chaya, her niece that died a hero. Hannah experiences a time slip to experience the past. The novel employs time travel as a plot device and both

504-463: The concert was released in late 2015. Stemple's first novel, for Tor Books , was Singer of Souls . A sequel, Steward of Song , was published in 2008. With his mother, Jane Yolen , Stemple has also co-authored two series of books — the Rock 'n Roll Fairy Tale series, and more recently, The Seelie Wars . The Rock 'n Roll Fairy Tale series began with Pay the Piper , published in 2005 by Tor. Pay

532-457: The entire population of the village to a death camp near Donavin, and only Hannah knows all the terrors they will face: starvation, mistreatment, forced labor, and finally execution. Hannah and the other women are stripped, shaved, and tattooed with a number. Hannah and the other women are forced to dig trenches in the camp. Hannah struggles to survive at the camp, with the help of a girl named Rivka. Uncle Shmuel and some other men try to escape;

560-408: The guard they have been working, but he takes them anyway and leaves Hannah by herself. As the three are about to leave, Hannah takes Rivka's place by putting on her babushka . Since the guards don't know their faces, this goes unnoticed by the officer. The girls are led to the gas chamber. She is then transported back to her family's Seder. Aunt Eva calls her over. Hannah looks at Aunt Eva's number; it

588-472: The kids, at a major British train station—I don’t know if it was Victoria Station or King's Cross. These things are out there ...This is not new. The Devil%27s Arithmetic The Devil's Arithmetic is a historical fiction time slip novel written by American author Jane Yolen and published in 1988. The book is about Hannah Stern, a Jewish girl who lives in New Rochelle, New York , and

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616-470: The men are caught and then shot as everyone watches. Fayge, who was going to be married to Shmuel, is killed because she runs to Shmuel when he is about to be shot with the men that were caught. Yitzchak escapes and lives in the forest with the partisans, fighting the Germans. Later, when Hannah, Rivka, Esther, and Shifre are working, a guard overhears them talking instead of working. Shifre tries to reassure

644-410: The same title , starring Kirsten Dunst and Brittany Murphy . Adam Stemple Stemple also wrote a Push-Fold chart for poker with poker player Chris Wallace. Stemple played guitar and sang as a member of the folk rock "rock-and-reel" band Cats Laughing from 1988 to 1996. The band also included notable fantasy/science fiction authors Steven Brust and Emma Bull . For twelve years, he

672-554: The songs were based. Stemple also produced and performed on Steven Brust's solo album A Rose for Iconoclastes . Stemple currently is with the Tim Malloys, an Irish band . Like Cats Laughing and Boiled in Lead, Stemple's current group shares musical roots that incorporate Celtic and rock styles. In April 2015, Stemple reunited with Cats Laughing in a concert at the Minicon science fiction convention. A live CD and DVD of

700-400: The subject by an editor of hers at the time, who was a Rabbi's wife. The Devil's Arithmetic is the author's first book that deals explicitly with Jewish themes. While writing the novel, Yolen spent a week at an Indianapolis private school; when she explained to students about her forthcoming work, one student asked if Yolen had made up the events of the novel, based on the real story of

728-532: The time travel convention was brought to "a new and ambitious level". The Devil's Arithmetic was nominated for the Nebula award for best novella in 1988 and won the National Jewish Book Award (in the children's literature category) in 1989. The script for the television movie was also nominated for a Nebula Award . The novel was adapted into a 1999 Showtime television film with

756-425: Was lead singer/guitarist for the band Boiled in Lead . Stemple first appeared on Boiled in Lead's 1994 album Antler Dance . He co-wrote nine songs with science fiction and fantasy author Steven Brust on the 1995 album Songs from The Gypsy , released as an enhanced CD . The CD has the distinction of including the full text of the novel The Gypsy , which Brust co-authored with Megan Lindholm and upon which

784-542: Was not able to sell them. Because the Hyatts, the family of Yolen's grandmother, Mina Hyatt Yolen, only had girls, a number of the children of Yolen's generation were given their last name as a middle name in order to perpetuate it. When Yolen was barely one year old, the family moved to California to accommodate Will's new job working for Hollywood film studios, doing publicity on films such as American Tragedy and Knut Rockne . The family moved back to New York City prior to

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