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The
Road from Home
A biography of the author's mother, Veron Dumehjian, this book tells of her early 20th century childhood when the Armenians living in Turkey were forced by the Turks to leave their homes and wander within Turkey and Syria. Events of this little known state-sanctioned genocide are recounted in a restrained first-person narrative which celebrates the Armenian culture. Veron's buoyant spirit sustained her and enables readers to perceive grim history through her youthful optimism. The Road from Home received numerous awards in 1979: The
AUTHOR David Kherdian was born in Racine on December 17, 1931, and brought up by his Armenian parents, Melkon and Veron (Dumehjian) Kherdian. He lived in a community comprised almost entirely of Armenians who had somehow persevered and survived the Turkish Massacres. Young David did not crave books as do most children experiencing the new joy of learning to read. He had difficulties in grade school because he "would not accept that books could represent life." He left Racine after his sophomore year at Horlick High School and received a high school diploma while in the military. Between 1952 and 1960, when he earned his degree in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin, David worked as a shoe salesman, bartender, factory worker and day laborer and served in the military. He once said he knew at 19 that he wanted to be a writer and thus refused to take any other work seriously. In 1979 David accepted the challenge issued by his mother when he was a child to write her story. The result was The Road from Home: The Story of an Armenian Girl. It was his first work of prose after 14 years of creating poetry. Kherdian
and his wife now live in Aurora, Oregon.
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Outstanding Juvenile Nonfiction Boston Globe-Horn Book Award