The First Kindergarten

Book excerpt: Froebel-Parker's book about Friedrich Froebel and Baroness Bertha von Marenholtz-Buelow is the third in his "Ahnentafel" series. It was preceded by "Friedrich and the First Kindergarten" and "Grandma Harrington and the Queen's Wardrobe." In "The First Kindergarten: Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel & Baroness Bertha Marie von Marenholtz-Buelow" the author expands the story of the founding of Kindergarten to include Friedrich Froebel's tireless friend and advocate, Baroness von Marenholtz-Buelow. Opening the doors of cultural luminaries and European nobility to Froebel's ideas, the noblewoman from the ancient von Buelow family is often dubbed "the mother of Kindergarten" just as Froebel is referred to as "the father of Kindergarten." In this historical novel, which includes much biographical information, Froebel-Parker joins through literature the lives and contributions of two of the world's greatest proponents of children's education which are still relevant today.