Tutti's Promise – A novel based on a family's true story of courage and hope during the Holocaust

Tutti's Promise
232 Pages
ISBN 978-0990843016

Can nine-year-old Tutti keep a promise—and a secret? Her family’s life may depend on it. In the early 1930s, life for the Jews is on the brink of ruin: Hitler has come to power, and the golden memories of happy times are fading fast.

One young couple, Margret and Heinz Lichtenstern, decide to flee Germany with their parents and daughter, Tutti. They move to Amsterdam, where Heinz is able to continue his work . . . and where there seems to be hope for the future. Two years later, Tutti’s brother is born, and the family is prospering. But then Germany invades the Netherlands. And in the pre-dawn hours of May 10, 1940, the Lichtensterns suddenly learn that they have not moved far enough.

This is the true story of what the Lichtensterns endured under the Nazis. Told by Tutti’s daughter, Heidi, and filled with historical documents and photos, it vividly recreates how one family conquered fear and heartbreak to survive. Theirs is a tale of both unimaginable devastation and lucky surprises—raids, sabotage, helpful friends and strangers, and a very special gift.

One family. One remarkable story. And in the end . . . a promise kept.

~Winner of an IBPA Benjamin Franklin Silver Medal for Best New Voice in Children's/YA and an IBPA Benjamin Franklin Silver Medal for Children's Fiction (ages 8-12)! ~Named a Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People 2018 by the National Council for the Social Studies and the Children's Book Council

A promise kept is like the twinkling stars in the night sky . . . a constant reminder of something important that makes you who you are.

K. Heidi Fishman

About K. Heidi Fishman (Vermont Author)

K. Heidi Fishman

K Heidi Fishman’s first novel, "Tutti’s Promise," was published by MB Publishing in March 2017. "Tutti's Promise" has been named a 2018 Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) and the Children’s Book Council. In 2015, Heidi won the Joseph Zola Memorial Holocaust Educator Award from the Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Hartford for the book proposal that led to "Tutti’s Promise."

Fishman grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut. After graduating from Williams College, she received both an MA and an EdD in Counseling Psychology from Western Michigan University. As a psychologist, she worked at Dartmouth College and in private practice.

She lives in Vermont with her husband, a feisty border terrier, and a stow-away cat. She occasionally sees her busy teenagers who are rapidly becoming twenty-somethings. She hopes to see "Tutti’s Promise" used in middle schools all over the country to teach Holocaust Studies.