On Writing

In Memoriam Gerda Katz Frumkin Dec. 4, 1925 - Sept. 22, 2017 We are mourning the loss of Gerda Katz Frumkin, my mother's childhood friend. After becoming best friends on the ship from Nazi Germany to America, Edith (my mother) and Gerda lost touch with each other in 1938. In 2011, eighth graders reunited the two old friends, 73 years after they last saw each other. Like Finding My Twin ...

In The Spotlight Chapman, Fern Schumer. Stumbling on History: An Art Project Compels a Small German Town to Face its Past. Lake Bluff, IL: Gussie Rose Press, 2016. (Now available from Kar-Ben Publishers) 56 pp. $17.99. (9780996472517). PBK. Gr. 6-12. Reviewed from ARC. The central story of this illustrated non-fiction book is about unique public art project honoring individual Holocaust victims. It explains one way modern Germans are recognizing and ...

    Stumbling On History is now available through the Junior Library Guild!

What is it like knowing what your mother went through? My mother suffered terribly as a child. Before they were killed by the Nazis, my grandparents made the most painful choice any parent could face. They decided to send my mother, who was only 12 years old, to live with relatives in America. She came to this country alone. These experiences deeply defined her. By writing two books about my ...

From Barbara Bietz’s Blog: Please welcome author Fern Schumer Chapman. Junior Library Guild has selected her new book, Is It Night or Day? (March 2010), as a spring title. In a starred review, Booklist called the work ”powerful and eloquent,” adding, ”as with the best writing, the specifics about life as a young immigrant are universal.” A prequel to Chapman’s first book Motherland, the new book explores a little-known program which rescued ...

When did you realize you wanted to be a writer? I had a difficult childhood, but writing saved me. I discovered that capturing my emotional life on the page could be therapeutic. As Anne Frank wrote in her diary in April 1944, “I can shake off everything if I write. My sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.”   What were your hobbies as a kid? What are your hobbies now? ...

Friday, May 26, 2017 Book Review: Stumbling on History by Fern Schumer Chapman This is an interesting book about an art project of Stumbling Stones to help mark the lives Holocaust victims in more than 1,000 cities throughout Germany, France, Denmark, Poland, Italy, and Austria. Each Stumbling Stone cost about $133 each. It focuses on the story of Edith Westerfield, a Holocaust survivor and what she and her family endured during ...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-holocaust-memorials-kogan-sidewalks-ae-0409-20170406-column.html

http://www.juniorlibraryguild.com/how-jlg-works/thanks-from-happy-authors From the Junior Library Guild: "Congratulations! In keeping with our goal of providing extraordinary reading experiences for children and young adults, Stumbling On History: An Art Project Compels A Small German Town To Face Its Past has been awarded the designation, “A Junior Library Guild Selection” for our fall 2016 span. The Junior Library Guild Selection designation is unique in that it is typically awarded so early—often in advance ...

http://wgnradio.com/2017/03/27/after-hours-with-rick-kogan-32617/