There is nothing like the holidays with the love of family all around. OMA COMES HOME FOR CHRISTMAS is the third book in the OMA AND ME series. In this book Ethan shares his excitement in anticipation of his grandmother's arrival along with the joys of spending Christmas together. This story as told through the eyes of a little boy, will definitely warm your heart. It is filled with all the precious moments that make a family Christmas very special. Once again Ethan also makes the story educational by sharing his bi-lingual abilities and teaching five words from the story in German. OMA COMES FOR CHRISTMAS is a very delightful read for any family and should be included in the home library of every young reader.

What they're saying about AAMIE'S WAR "Profoundly moving I couldn't put it down!" Zella Brown, Cofounder of One By One Jewish German Reconciliation Through Dialogue "A compelling and sensitive personal account, at times charming and tender, at times grimly upsetting Honest, painful and necessary, this book offers an important perspective rarely read in America. An important addition to the human saga of war and the tragic condition of mankind in all it's paradoxical complexity." Lawrence Lowenthal, Director of the New England Region American Jewish Committee "Marga Dieter captures so well the thinking and heart of a little German girl caught in the ravages of the Second World War." Joan Ecklein, Former Co-Chair of the Boston Chapter Women's International League for Peace and Freedom "These poignant experiences of an innocent, bright and lively young girl, acutely remembered by an adult woman, and told with sensitivity and a wonderful sense of drama, will fill the void left by the silent generation of Germany's war children." Barbara Eskin, Moderator of the German Book Club Goethe Institute, Boston Bombs, destruction and emotional devastation form the backdrop for Aamie's childhood on the homefront in Germany during World War II. What might seem crushing to most little girls is just everyday life for her. In a neighborhood where the walls are plastered with posters proclaiming "THE ENEMY IS ALWAYS LISTENING!" and people live by the secrets they keep, any revelation of her mother's sentiments against the Nazis is a danger to her family's very survival. Her father, in the Navy, is eventually captured and serves as a POW, until Aamie is nine years old. Her mother's struggle to maintain their family and raise two teenage boys, who are members of the mandatory Hitler Youth program, within the turmoil of war-torn Germany drives her to physical and nervous breakdown. Yet Aamie, with the support of her Greek Chorus of celluloid dolls, ponders and overcomes these obstacles with an irrepressible tom-boy spirit. An intensely told story of a wartime childhood, this book is a reminder of how children's emotional lives play out against the horror and destruction of war.

The heart of Christmas: "When a chance meeting brings together a gentle seamstress and a widowed banker, each lonely soul finds a first hint of hope. As their lives become entwined, it will take Christmas spirit to guide a broken family to love and healing."--

This memoir is the story of my childhood and teen years. It begins when I was very young with my parents' divorce, then goes on to living with a spiteful and unloving stepmother, World War II, my father being wounded, the fear of the approaching Russian front, our fleeing from them and bombings. After the end of war, as we tried to make our way back home, I was terrified of the Russian soldiers and war prisoners who roamed our countryside. I feared my father would be shot or imprisoned. I listened to women screaming for help while being raped. I endured the sorrow of losing my beloved father, followed by living with my stepmother's cruelty. My agony ended with the happy reunion with my real mother, my sister, Oma my loving grandmother, and family. After WWII ended, my family and I lived behind the "Iron Curtain" in East Germany under the Russian occupation Stalin's "Iron Fist." His communist regime imposed such strict isolation and extreme hunger on us that in June of 1953 the citizens of East Germany waged an unsuccessful uprising to gain freedom from Russia and communism. Finally, in the fall of 1953, when I was eighteen, we escaped to West Germany. These are the memories of my childhood and teen years.

Selected for Jamie Oliver's Cookbook Club ‘I love it. As soon as I opened this, I felt it was Christmas.’ – Diana Henry Advent celebrates the magical run-up to Christmas with over 100 classic German baking recipes. The Advent season is one of the most special times of the year, when candles twinkle, the Christmas tree is decorated, and the smells of cinnamon, nutmeg and clove fill the kitchen. In her new cookbook Advent, Anja Dunk shares her recipes for the very best of traditional German festive bakes. From lightly spiced Lebkuchen, frosted cinnamon stars, jam-filled ginger hearts, snow-capped coconut macaroons, to marzipan-filled Stollen, edible tree decorations, lucky meringue mushrooms and a gingerbread house dripping with candies and sugar icicles, you will find delectable spiced treats to fill your Bunter Teller and share with friends and family. Featuring Anja’s own linocut illustrations and evocative photography, this is a stunning, comforting clothbound volume that will be a family favourite for many years to come. The weeks of Advent hold all the sweet, almost unbearable anticipation of Christmas for days on end and this gorgeous book embraces that fairy-tale feeling within its pages.

A New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher’s Weekly bestseller from the author of Redeeming Love. The two volumes of this unforgettable bestselling series from beloved author Francine Rivers are now available in a single e-book edition. Her Mother’s Hope and Her Daughter’s Dream tell the story of four generations of women in one family who are all searching for their God-given place in the world. A rich and moving epic, the series spans decades and continents to explore not only the sacrifices mothers make for their daughters but also the very nature of unconditional love. Marta’s Legacy Collection is a rich, moving epic about faith and dreams, heartache and disappointment, and the legacy of love passed down through four generations in one family. “Emotionally rich. . . . As her compelling characters seek to do what they feel their faith demands, Rivers sets their resonant struggles against dusty streets, windswept Canadian plains, and California vineyards in vivid scenes readers will not soon forget.” —Booklist, starred review “Writers like Rivers are why people buy Christian fiction: it’s dramatic, engaging . . . [and] this well-told tale will have readers eagerly awaiting the story’s resolution.” Publishers Weekly “Rivers has written another page-turner. . . . This heartfelt and sweeping saga is as ambitious as its central matriarch.” —Publishers Weekly “Engrossing and stunning. . . . The prose is elegant and life changing. . . . This sweeping family saga will touch both the heart and soul.” —Romantic Times

From the acclaimed author of Secrets of a Charmed Life and As Bright as Heaven comes a novel about a German American teenager whose life changes forever when her immigrant family is sent to an internment camp during World War II. In 1943, Elise Sontag is a typical American teenager from Iowa—aware of the war but distanced from its reach. Then her father, a legal U.S. resident for nearly two decades, is suddenly arrested on suspicion of being a Nazi sympathizer. The family is sent to an internment camp in Texas, where, behind the armed guards and barbed wire, Elise feels stripped of everything beloved and familiar, including her own identity. The only thing that makes the camp bearable is meeting fellow internee Mariko Inoue, a Japanese-American teen from Los Angeles, whose friendship empowers Elise to believe the life she knew before the war will again be hers. Together in the desert wilderness, Elise and Mariko hold tight the dream of being young American women with a future beyond the fences. But when the Sontag family is exchanged for American prisoners behind enemy lines in Germany, Elise will face head-on the person the war desires to make of her. In that devastating crucible she must discover if she has the will to rise above prejudice and hatred and re-claim her own destiny, or disappear into the image others have cast upon her. The Last Year of the War tells a little-known story of World War II with great resonance for our own times and challenges the very notion of who we are when who we’ve always been is called into question.