A literature Circle Unit for readers on the upper sixth Grade Level

Planned by Victoria Hightower

The Devils Arithmetic is a book written on a child’s point of view on the Holocaust. Hannah is just a normal little girl, eating a Seder dinner with her family on Passover, when she is magically transported to Poland in the year 1942. Throughout this book, Hannah is forced to deal with many hardships, such as life and death in a Jewish concentration camp. This wonderful book is very easy to read and students will be enthralled with all that they will learn throughout its pages. However, as a teacher you should be aware of many explicit scenes that are contained in this book. Several characters are killed by gun shot, sent to the smoke stacks to be cremated alive, and die of hunger or worse. However, this book is definitely worth reading. As a teacher you must be responsible for reading this book ahead of time and understanding that your student’s may be shocked and saddened by its contents. Therefore, I have given a fairly easy to read book an upper sixth grade reading level because of its content.

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