Awards

Thinking about releasing a 5,000 to 12,000 word download capturing story of the Gerda and Edith reunion. I might make it available as a Kindle Singles. Interested? Please let me know. Thanks!

Dan Fleshler Huffington Post, March 7, 2012 On a bitterly cold day during a recent visit to Berlin, I stood in front of a modest, unfinished, yellow brick wall on the grounds of the Löcknitz-Grundschule, a primary school in the city's "Bayerische Viertel" (Bavarian Quarter). Children were shouting and scampering around on a nearby playground. Next to me, even though she had visited this wall many times, Gudrun Blankenburg had ...

...who asked me to re-post the link to the news story about the reunion of Edith and Gerda. Here you go: http://www.nctv17.com/napervillenews17/article.php?id=803

Gerda and Edith, summer 2012. The two friends hadn't seen each other since 1938. After leaving their families in Nazi Germany, Holocaust refugees Edith Westerfeld and Gerda Katz, who were only 12 years old at the time, met on the ship that brought them to America. They became best friends, but lost touch with each other after they arrived in New York in 1938. They were reunited last summer, 73 ...

FSC and Kathleen Spedale Great to meet students and staff at Oak Lawn- Hometown Middle School.  Thanks to Library Media Specialist Kathleen Spedale and the District 123 Educational Foundation for organizing and sponsoring the presentations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20Axf6x5Zt8&feature=youtu.be

Night or Day? By Literactivity LP View In iTunes Through historic videos, compelling visuals of the story, comments from the author and protagonist, delightful interactivities, and case studies that explore bullying, this app reinvents the award-winning historical novel, Is It Night or Day?. Through a totally immersive experience, this app follows 12-year-old Edith's journey from Germany and the Holocaust to America and resonates with the thousands of children who come ...

1-24-11 Dear Fern Schumer Chapman, Olmsted Falls Middle School, Olmsted Falls, Ohio When I started reading Is it Night or Day?, I really didn’t care about World War II. After about a quarter into the book, I felt as if I was living with Edith and the things that happened to her. I can relate to Edith in many ways. Edith had many outstanding qualities that I liked. The one ...

Dear Fern, Happy New Year! I hope this finds you well. I wanted to share with you a short essay one of my 8th graders, a boy named Michael, wrote on his mid-year exam.  The students were asked to write a paragraph about their favorite book we've read so far this year.  While a number of students chose Is It Night or Day?, this essay really stood out, and I thought ...