David Kherdian

David Kherdian (born 1931) is an Armenian-American writer, poet, and editor. He is known best for The Road from Home (Greenwillow Books, 1979), based on his mother's childhood—cataloged as biography by some libraries, as fiction by others.^[1]

Biography

Kherdian was born in Racine, Wisconsin, in 1931. In 1971 he married Nonny Hogrogian, an Armenian-American illustrator and writer. For two years they lived in Lyme Center, New Hampshire, where he was the state "poet-in-the-schools". The state university library is one repository for their works (in a joint collection).^[2] Hogrogian has illustrated some of his books, both poetry anthologies edited by Kherdian and his own writings.^[3] A new edition of The Road from Home was published with her illustrations in 1995.

Awards

Kherdian won the 1979 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for children's nonfiction,^[4] and he was the only runner-up for the 1980 Newbery Medal,^[5] recognizing The Road from Home (1979), about the childhood of his mother Veron Dumehjian before and during the Armenian Genocide. The book has been published in most European countries and in many other places, including Japan.^[6] It has been reissued several times in the United States and is increasingly read in middle schools throughout the country. In the sequel Finding Home (1981) she settles in America as a mail-order bride. It too is sometime cataloged as fiction.^[7]

Selected works

WorldCat member libraries report holding more than 20 books by Kherdian, of which The Road from Home is by far the most common.^[8]

• A Bibliography of William Saroyan, 1934–1964 (1964)
• Six Poets of the San Francisco Renaissance: portraits and checklists (1967)
• Homage to Adana (1970)
• Visions of America (1973)
• Settling America: the ethnic expression of 14 contemporary poets (1974)
• Poems Here and Now (1976)
• Traveling America with Goday's Poets (1977)
• The Dog Writes on the Window with His Nose and other poems (1977)
• The Road from Home: the story of an Armenian girl (1979) – biography in some library catalogs, fiction in others^[1]
• Finding Home (1981) – continues The Road from Home^[7]
• Right Now (1983)
• The Animal (1984)
• Root River Run (1984)
• Bridger: the story of a mountain man (1987)
• A Song for Uncle Harry (1989)
• The Cat's Midsummer Jamboree (1990)
• Feathers and Tails: animal fables from around the world (1991)
• On a Spaceship with Beelzebub: by a grandson of Gurdjieff (1991)
• Lullaby for Emily (1995)
• Beat Voices: an anthology of beat poetry (1995)
• The Rose's Smile: Farizad of the Arabian Nights (1997)
• The Golden Bracelet (1997)
• I Called it Home (1997)
• The Neighborhood Years (2000)
• Come Back, Moon (2013)

References

External links

• Official website
• David Kherdian at Library of Congress Authorities, with 56 catalog records