Having ignored his mother’s warnings about what will happen if he doesn’t bathe after working on his family’s New Mexican farm, Carlos awakens one morning to find a squash growing out of his ear.
Southwest
La Fiesta Del Abecedario
The Alphabet Festival
The Navajo Year Walk Through Many Seasons
For the Navajo people, the new year begins in October, when summer meets winter. The Navajo Year, Walk Through Many Seasons follows the Navajo calendar, and provides poetic descriptions of the many sights, sounds, and activities associated with each month. In November, there are string games and stories; in April, planting of corn, beans, and squash; and in July, rodeos and monsoon rains. Follow Coyote through the year, and explore how the Navajos observe the rites and passages of each month.
The Good Rainbow Road
This is the story of two courageous boys and of how they saved their village, Haapaahnitse, Oak Place, and it lies at the foot of a mountain. Once there was a lake and a stream nearby, but they have dried up. The land has become barren and dry. Two brothers, Tsaiyah-dzehshi, whose name means First One, and Hamahshu-dzehshi, Next One, are chosen for a westward trek to the home of the Shiwana, the Rain and Snow Spirits, to ask them to bring the gift of water to the village again. The brothers cross deserts and mountains on an arduous journey until they are finally stopped short by a treacherous canyon filled with molten lava. “The Good Rainbow Road” tells how the brothers overcome this last challenge and continue on to their destination.
“The Good Rainbow Road” is presented in Keres, the language of Acoma Pueblo and six other Pueblo communities in New Mexico, and in English, with an additional Spanish translation in the back of the book. It is published in cooperation with Oyate, a community-based Native organization dedicated to the continuation of traditional literatures and histories.
A Perfect Season For Dreaming / Un Tiempo Perfecto Para Sonar
An old man tells his granddaughter about the nine most beautiful dreams of his lifetime.
Juan Verdades: The Man Who Couldn’t Tell A Lie
A wealthy rancher is so certain of the honesty of his foreman that he wagers his ranch.
I Will Save You
Seventeen-year-old Kidd Ellison runs away to work for the summer at a beach campsite in California where his hard work and good looks lead to friendship and love but painful past memories surface in menacing ways.
Benito’s Sopaipillas/Las sopaipillas de Benito
As they prepare to make the traditional, pillowy bread called sopaipilla, Christina’s grandmother tells about the time her great-grandfather, aided by a scarecrow, brought an end to a drought and, in the process, helped make the first sopaipilla.
Way Out in the Desert
A counting book in rhyme presents various desert animals and their children, from a mother horned toad and her little toadie one to a mom tarantula and her little spiders ten. Numerals are hidden in each illustration.
The Seed and the Giant Saguaro
A packrat, carrying fruit from the giant saguaro, is chased by various desert animals and inadvertently helps spread the cactus’s seed. Includes information on saguaros.