Synopsis
A Junior Library Guild spring 2017 selection. Edith Westerfeld, an 89-year-old Holocaust refugee, wonders if the memory of the Nazis murdering her parents, along with millions of other victims, will outlive the survivors. Now, 76 years after Edith's parents saved their daughter's life by sending her, alone and terrified, to America she returns to the small German town where her family had lived for hundreds of years. Invited to witness the installation of a memorial to her family -- part of an effort throughout Europe to confront the genocide of World War II -- she experiences how art is helping today's generation face and atone for crimes of the past. Stumbling on History carries the readers along on this journey, as Edith joins the ceremony of Stolpersteine -- Stumbling Stones. Watching her former neighbors and descendants struggle to right their nation's past wrongs, she realizes, at last, the power of hearing, "I'm sorry."
About the Author
Critically acclaimed Chicago-based writer Fern Schumer Chapman has written several award-winning books. Viking/Penguin released her most recent book, Brothers, Sisters, Strangers: Sibling Estrangement and the Road to Reconciliation, in 2021. She writes a blog for Psychology Today called "Brothers, Sisters, Strangers," and she co-hosts a podcast by the same name. Some of her blog posts are compiled in her most recent work, The Sibling Estrangement Journal: A Guided Exploration of Your Experience through Writing.
Her memoir, Motherland - a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, and a BookSense76 pick - is a popular choice for book clubs. Two of her other books, Is It Night or Day? and Middle School Sleuths, are used in middle school classrooms. In 2004, the Illinois Association of Teachers of English (IATE) named Chapman the "Illinois Author of the Year." Twice, Oprah Winfrey shows have featured her books.
The Junior Library Guild named two of her books, Facing the Past and Three Stars in the Night Sky, as August 2017 and August 2018 selections. Recently, she published two picture books, Happy Harper Thursdays and The Return of Happy Harper Thursdays. She gives dozens of presentations each year at schools and events.
As a journalist and reporter, her work has appeared in many publications including the Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, Fortune, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a master's degree from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, she has taught magazine writing and other seminars at both Northwestern and Lake Forest College.
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