Book excerpt: Not long after graduating from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts at the age of 83, Frieda Lefeber decided to embark on yet another creative adventure, writing her first book. In Frieda's Journey, she tells her story, from her birth in Germany in 1915 right up to the present day. Frieda shares with readers her vivid memories of the horrors of World War I, post-war Germany, the depression, life under the Hitler regime, and the pre-World War II persecution of the Jews that culminated in Kristallnacht. In opposition to the serious and gruesome details of her fear of and eventual escape from life in Germany, she shares humorous anecdotes from her childhood and her experiences as a foreigner struggling with a new language, as well as memories of her many successes and lucky breaks. She also discusses the many issues facing America's immigrant population in the latter half of the Twentieth Century, as well as the joys and talents that can be found unexpectedly even late in life. Frieda's Journey is an inspiration, and will remind the young and old alike how to live passionately and with wisdom, and to overcome hardships and come out all the better for it.