Things are not well with the Wittenbergs. Alice has given birth to her second child with a genetic disorder. Millicent has withdrawn into a depression. Joseph must choose between being principal of George Sutton Collegiate and the new English teacher who's caught his eye. And Mia finds herself at the mercy of an unsympathetic teacher while her attractive athletic neighbour ignores her. Only the oldest Wittenberg, the matriarch who holds the key to the family's Mennonite past, can lead her family along the banks of the Dnieper and toward a better tomorrow.

Born in Manitoba’s Interlake, Sarah Klassen learned at an early age to appreciate both birdsong and nature’s silence. An accomplished poet and fiction writer, she has won the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award (Journey to Yalta), the High Plains Award for Fiction (A Feast of Longing), the Canadian Authors Association Award for Poetry (A Curious Beatitude), and the National Magazine Gold Award for Poetry. Her work has been nominated for the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award, the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction, and the Aqua Lansdowne Prize for Poetry. The Witternbergs is her first novel. Klassen lives in Winnipeg.

Sarah Klassen's profile page

What a marvel of a character Sarah Klassen has created in Mia Wittenberg, an open-hearted teenager who holds a troubled family's past and present in her steady gaze.
-Joan Thomas, author of Curiosity

Praise from Joan Thomas