Wilkommen

     Baruch Haba

          Welcome

               Falite

                    Bienvenido

                         Byenvini

When Rosemary Wells was about ten years old, she heard a story about a rocking chair. It had been carved by her great-great-grandfather more than a hundred years before. He—Sam Seigbert—had left his home in Germany and gone to America, where he found work as a carpenter in a small family shop. When that family welcomed a son, Sam made a beautiful wooden chair for mother and child to rock in. He carved the German word "Wilkommen," meaning "welcome," into the chair.

The family—along with Sam—moved to Wisconsin, where they settled. The chair went with them. Over time, "welcome" was added to the chair's panel of Sam's original rocking chair in six different languages.

This story was inspired by an 1870 family diary, written by Sam's wife, Ruth, in old spidery handwriting and duly translated by the author's grandmother. It celebrates the many different immigrant experiences of some of the people who have created the fabric of America.

With luminous and loving artwork by Caldecott artist Jerry Pinkney, The Welcome Chair celebrates individual courage, and the families and their stories that make up our world.

From the dust jacket