Janet Bond Brill, PhD, is the bestselling author of six books, including five health and nutrition titles published by Random House and Wiley, with more than 200,000 copies in print. Her newest book, Little Edna’s War, marks a deeply personal new chapter in her work: preserving the extraordinary Holocaust story of her late mother-in-law, Edna Brill.

The book draws on Janet’s thirty-seven-year relationship with Edna, more than five hours of testimony archived by the USC Shoah Foundation, and years of research in military, historical, and family records. Blending the intimacy of personal memory with rigorous historical documentation, Little Edna’s War traces Edna’s journey from the Warsaw Ghetto to life under a false Catholic identity, service as a commissioned child soldier in the Polish Home Army during the Warsaw Uprising, imprisonment in Nazi prisoner-of-war camps, and the rebuilding of her life in the postwar Jewish diaspora.

Earlier life and career

Born and raised in New York City, Janet earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Miami before spending seven years as a Pan American World Airways flight attendant. She later returned to academia, earning graduate degrees and building a career as an author, educator, and nationally recognized health and wellness expert.