The Welcome Chair

by Rosemary Wells (Author) Jerry Pinkney (Illustrator)

The Welcome Chair
Reading Level: 2nd − 3rd Grade

Based in part on a 100-year-old family journal, Rosemary Wells brings to life a story that the diary's fragile pages tell. It's the story of a wooden rocking chair handmade in about 1825 by her great-great grandfather, an immigrant Jewish boy who made his way to America from Germany in the early 1800s.

In 1807, Sam Siebert is born in southern Germany. Sam's favorite pastime is carpentry, much to his father's displeasure. His mother says he has a gift from God in his hands. After moving to America, he builds a wooden chair with the word WILLKOMMEN on the back. The chair's back panel was later marked with welcomes by four generations of the family in four different languages.

After the family lost track of the old chair, the author created a new life for it among new owners from other corners of the world. All the families who loved the chair came to America, escaping religious conformity, natural disasters, tyrannies, war, and superstition. In its lifetime, the rocking chair, with its earliest word WILLKOMMEN, stood for openness, hospitality, and acceptance to all who owned it or rocked safely in its embrace.

Select format:
Hardcover
$17.99

Kirkus

Starred Review
Whether stated in one language or many, a resounding welcome to immigrants.
Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9781534429772
Lexile Measure
-
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books
Publication date
September 20, 2021
Series
-
BISAC categories
JUV013030 - Juvenile Fiction | Family | Multigenerational
JUV039250 - Juvenile Fiction | Social Themes | Emigration & Immigration
JUV016000 - Juvenile Fiction | Historical | General
Library of Congress categories
Immigrants
Chairs

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