David Kherdian has mined his Armenian roots in numerous fiction and nonfiction titles, one of the most popular being the Newbery Honor book, The Road from Home: The Story of an Armenian Girl, and its two sequels. Teaming up with his artist wife, Nonny Hogrogian, he has also provided enticing tales for young readers, from stories of a fishing contest to animal fables and retellings of Armenian folk tales. Through his long writing career, Kherdian has worked in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. As he noted in a talk reprinted in Wisconsin Library Bulletin, his writing journey took on several transformations: "A writer's career, if I may call it that, is full of ironies. . . . [L]ooking back I recall that I began--or tried to begin--by writing prose fiction. Failing that I wrote nonfiction. Dissatisfied with that I became (much to my surprise) a poet. Not being able to make...