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 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.

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.

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 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.

The novel employs time travel as a plot device and both 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.