Chrildren's Book

Winner – Best of Los Angeles Award's "Best Holocaust Book - 2021" “A must-read that hopefully will be adapted for the screen. Greene lets Wilzig’s effervescent spirit shine through, and his story will appeal to a wide variety of readers.” - Library Journal Unstoppable is the ultimate immigrant story and an epic David-and-Goliath adventure. While American teens were socializing in ice cream parlors, Siggi was suffering beatings by Nazi hoodlums for being a Jew and was soon deported along with his family to the darkest place the world has ever known: Auschwitz. Siggi used his wits to stay alive, pretending to have trade skills the Nazis could exploit to run the camp. After two death marches and near starvation, he was liberated from camp Mauthausen and went to work for the US Army hunting Nazis, a service that earned him a visa to America. On arrival, he made three vows: to never go hungry again, to support the Jewish people, and to speak out against injustice. He earned his first dollar shoveling snow after a fierce blizzard. His next job was laboring in toxic sweatshops. From these humble beginnings, he became President, Chairman and CEO of a New York Stock Exchange-listed oil company and grew a full-service commercial bank to more than $4 billion in assets. Siggi’s ascent from the darkest of yesterdays to the brightest of tomorrows holds sway over the imagination in this riveting narrative of grit, cunning, luck, and the determination to live life to the fullest.

"Epic in scope, but gentle and charming in delivery, Fred Amram's We're in America Now is a quiet chronicle of a clamorous era. Politics and war compel Amram's family to leave the only home they ever knew and embark on a personal exodus, fleeing a new pharaoh, pursuing a new promised land. They arrive in America to discover that paradise is not all milk and honey, but love, loyalty, and faith conspire to hold the family together, and the story of how they rebuild the life that was robbed them is moving, probing, and insightful." —J.C. Hallman, author of B & Me: A True Story of Literary Arousal These compelling stories form a riveting memoir that begins with the author's birth during the rise of Hitler in 1930s Germany. He and his surviving family soon escape to Holland and sail to America where they encounter many challenges as immigrants in a new world. This country truly becomes a land of opportunity where one can build a new life and become more than a "Holocaust survivor." Fred Amram is a retired University of Minnesota professor of communication and creativity. He spent his early years in Hanover, Germany, where he experienced the Holocaust from its inception in 1933. He witnessed Kristallnacht and the Gestapo invading his home. He watched the British bombers from his balcony when Jews were banned from air raid shelters. The loss of uncles, aunts, a grandmother, and many more relatives has motivated him to share his experiences in hopes of ending genocide everywhere.

With a foreword by Alan Gratz, New York Times bestselling author of Refugee. Ruth Gruener was a hidden child during the Holocaust. At the end of the war, she and her parents were overjoyed to be free. But their struggles as displaced people had just begun.In war-ravaged Europe, they waited for paperwork for a chance to come to America. Once they arrived in Brooklyn, they began to build a new life, but spoke little English. Ruth started at a new school and tried to make friends -- but continued to fight nightmares and flashbacks of her time during World War II.The family's perseverance is a classic story of the American dream, but also illustrates the difficulties that millions of immigrants face in the aftermath of trauma.This is a gripping and human account of a survivor's journey forward with timely connections to refugee and immigrant experiences worldwide today.

“In his beautifully crafted and rigorously reported volume, Andrew Rice takes readers back to Florida in 2000, laying out a cultural and political history of a moment at which America’s political system was turned inside out, its power structures upended. The Year That Broke America is vivid and wide-ranging; it also happens to be a page turner.”—Rebecca Traister, bestselling author of Good and Mad “Engrossing, insightful, tragic and above all, irresistible.”— Ronald Brownstein Combining the compelling insight of Nixonland and the narrative verve of Ladies and Gentleman: The Bronx is Burning, a journalist’s definitive cultural and political history of the fatefully important moment when American politics and culture turned: the year 2000. Before there was Coronavirus, before there was the contentious 2020 election or the entire Trump presidency, there was a turning-point year that proved momentous and transformative for American politics and the fate of the nation. That year was 2000, the last year of America’s unchallenged geopolitical dominance, the year Mark Burnett created Survivor and a new form of celebrity, the year a little Cuban immigrant became the focus of a media circus, the year Donald Trump flirted with running for President (and failed miserably), the year a group of Al Qaeda operatives traveled to America to learn to fly planes. They all converged in Florida, where that fall, the most important presidential election in generations was decided by the slimmest margin imaginable. But the year 2000 was also the moment when the authority of the political system was undermined by technical malfunctions; when the legal system was compromised by the justices of the Supreme Court; when the financial system was devalued by deregulation, speculation, creative securitization, and scam artistry; when the mainstream news media was destabilized by the propaganda power of Fox News and the supercharged speed of the internet; when the power of tastemakers, gatekeepers, and cultural elites was diminished by a dawning recognition of its irrelevance. Expertly synthesizing many hours of interviews, court records, FOIA requests, and original archival research, Andrew Rice marshals an impressive cast of dupes, schmucks, superstars, politicians, and shameless scoundrels in telling the fascinating story of this portentous year that marked a cultural watershed. Back at the start of the new millennium it was easy to laugh and roll our eyes about the crazy events in Florida in the year 2000—but what happened then and there has determined where we are and who we’ve become.

The Unbelievable True Story of a Vietnamese Refugee Who Not Only Made the United States Her Home, But Learned the True Value of Hope, Love, and Religion Along the Way The soles of Nhi Aronheim's feet still bear the scars of her escape from Vietnam—trudging through the jungles of Cambodia as a twelve-year-old with a group of strangers seeking the land of opportunity: America. Her quest for survival through the Cambodian jungle eventually led her to a boat that took her to Thailand and an orphanage where Nhi lived for two years until she qualified for refugee status in the United States. Years later, she returned to Vietnam with a film producer to reunite with the family she never thought she’d see again. A second trip to Vietnam brought her two mothers, birth and adopted, face to face. Yet Soles of a Survivor isn’t just another inspirational survival story. It’s about the lessons Nhi learned about humanity, diversity, and unconditional love since arriving in the United States. She now has a deeper appreciation for the parallels between the Jewish and Vietnamese cultures, and others. After she met her Jewish beau, they got married. She eventually converted to Judaism, though the process was challenging for an Asian woman adopted into a Christian household. Her story shows it matters less what religion we’re part of, as long as we radiate goodness to those we meet. Now she relishes being a Vietnamese Jew. Having come full circle from prosperity to poverty and back, Nhi hopes to encourage others to believe that in spite of overwhelming odds, all things are possible if one has an intense desire, focused energy, and the audacity to grasp presented opportunities.