What They're Reading in Vermont

I'm happy to learn that The Year of Goodbyes is on the master list for the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Book Award, sponsored by the Vermont Department of Libraries and the Vermont State PTA.  The idea is that young people in Vermont will read the books on the master list during the 2011-2012 school year.  I'll enjoy thinking of my Vermont readers in the coming year!

Do you know who Dorothy Canfield Fisher was?  You can read a little bit about her here.  I learned about her several years ago when I was working on a biography of Richard Wright for Lerner Publishing.  As part of my research, I read the correspondence between Fisher and Wright when she was a member of the selection committee that chose Wright's book Black Boy as a Book-of-the-Month-Club selection in spring of 1945.  Those are some very interesting letters. . . . And now my book is on a list named in her honor!