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The American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture presented its 12th “Book of the Year” award to Lisl Detlefsen for “Right This Very Minute.” The book, stunningly illustrated by Renée Kurilla, explains to children how every minute of every day, someone, somewhere, is working to bring food to their table. “Right This Very Minute” is the first book published by the Foundation’s Feeding Minds Press, which was launched in 2018.

Detlefsen lives on a cranberry marsh near Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, with her husband and two sons. She has two previously published books, “Time for Cranberries” and “If You Had a Jetpack.”

Detlefsen said, “I’m so thankful for the Foundation’s passionate devotion to telling the story of modern farming in America. In children’s literature, we talk a lot about windows and mirrors, meaning that young readers need to view the worlds of others, and they also need to see the world they live in reflected on the page. When I first began writing about agriculture, I thought I was writing windows for kids who are not immersed in farming. What I discovered was that I was also writing mirrors for kids from farming families who so rarely have the opportunity to see themselves accurately depicted in books. Collaborating with Feeding Minds Press, a publisher so devoted to creating agricultural mirrors and windows, has been an honor and a joy. To have that collaboration, ‘Right This Very Minute,’ recognized with this award is very much a dream come true.”

The “Book of the Year” award springs from the Foundation’s effort to identify “Accurate Ag Books,” a collection of nearly 500 books for children, teenagers and adults that accurately cover agricultural topics. Book of the Year selections are educational, help to create positive public perceptions about agriculture, inspire readers to learn more and touch their readers’ lives as well as tell the farmer’s story.

To accompany the “Right This Very Minute” book, the Foundation has created an educator’s guide and a new Snacks Ag Mag.

In honor of Detlefsen’s award and New Orleans, the host city of the American Farm Bureau Federation’s 100th Annual Convention, the Foundation will donate books and a $1,000 ag literacy grant to the Friends of the New Orleans Public Library.