Paideia Summer Reading
‘Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home’ by Nora Krug will be the first book discussed in Paideia class in fall 2026. The Paideia Program will provide all new students with a free copy and a reading guide.
Join the Conversation
The Paideia Program will provide all new students with a free copy and a reading guide. You will also get to hear from Nora Krug in person! She is traveling to Decorah to give the opening convocation talk for the 2026 academic year.
Summer Reading Guide
Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home (ISBN 978-1-4767-9663-5) is the first reading assignment for Paideia 111. A reading guide will be provided with your book. Use the background and study questions to guide your reading and prepare for class discussions.
Coming Soon: Download the Summer Reading Guide
About the Book
About the Author
Nora Krug, author of “Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home.” Photo by Nina Subin
Nora Krug is a German-American author and artist. Her books were published in 21 countries, and her illustrations have been recognized with gold and silver medals by both the Society of Illustrators and the NY Art Directors Club. Krug is a recipient of fellowships from Fulbright, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Maurice Sendak Foundation, and others. Her books are included in the Library of Congress and the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University. Krug was named Moira Gemmill Illustrator of the Year and 2019 Book Illustration Prize Winner by the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Her visual memoir Heimat / Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home, about World War II and her own German family history, was chosen as a best book of the year by the New York Times, the Guardian, NPR, Kirkus Review, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Boston Globe. It was the winner of the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award, the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize, the Art Directors Club Gold and Discipline Winner Cubes, the Society of Illustrators Silver Medal, and the British Book Design and Production Award, among others.
Her collaboration with historian Timothy Snyder, a graphic edition of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, was named a Best Graphic Novel of 2021 by the New York Times, a New York Times Editor’s Choice, and one of Germany’s Most Beautiful Books of 2022.
Diaries of War: Two Visual Accounts from Ukraine and Russia, her book of graphic journalism that chronicles the contrasting experiences of a Ukrainian journalist and a Russian artist, both grappling with the realities of Russia’s renewed invasion of Ukraine in 2022, won the Overseas Press Club’s Best Cartoon Award runner-up citation and was named one of Germany’s Most Beautiful Books of 2024.
Her visual biography, Kamikaze, about a surviving Japanese WWII pilot, was included in Houghton Mifflin’s Best American Comics and Best Non-Required Reading, and her animations were shown at the Sundance Film Festival.
Krug is associate professor of illustration at the Parsons School of Design in New York City. She holds a B.A. Honours degree in performance design from the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, a Diplom in visual communications from the University of Arts Berlin, and an M.F.A. in illustration as a visual essay from the School of Visual Arts in New York. She was a fellow at Yale University’s Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies in 2024 and 2025, and was a fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.