Picture Books
Big Moon Tortilla
by Joy Cowle
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Grandma cooks tortillas while the little girl in this story does everything she can to sneak a taste of them! This Tohono O’odham story is perfect for young children in primary grades.
Carlos and the Squash Plant / Carlos y La Planta de Calabaza
by Jan Romero Stevens.
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Set in northern New Mexico, young Carlos refuses to take a bath after his farm work each day, until a plant sprouts in his ear. This Mexican- American story is perfect to talk about native plants and life cycles.
Ziiniyah/Zinnia: Hait'eego Naadaa' Shonaozt'e'/How The Corn Was Saved [Navajo]
by Patricia Hruby Powell
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When the Navajo people are on the brink of a devastating famine, the boy Red Bird is sent to ask Spider Woman for her help to save the crops.
The cazuela
That The Farm Maiden Stirred
by Samantha R. Vamos
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A farm maiden decides to get out her cazuela and cook arroz con leche. The farm animals join in to help in this playful cumulative tale that introduces Spanish words throughout the text.
Cactus Soup
by Eric A. Kimmel
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A Mexican-flavored Stone Soup story! A group of hungry soldiers ride into San Miguel, so the townspeople hide their tortillas, tamales, beans, and flour. But the Capitan asks for a cactus thorn to make cactus soup!
The Pancake Tree
by Jacky Turchick, Laurie Melrood
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From waiting for the mesquite pods to finish growing, to picking, gathering, drying and cleaning them, grinding the pods into flour, and sifting the flour for use in a recipe, the little girl follows her Grandmama through various tasks and errands.
Yum! ¡Mmm! ¡Qué Rico! America's Sproutings
by Pat Mora
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Chocolate, papaya, corn, and potatoes - these are only a taste of the many delicious foods native to the Americas and celebrated in this delightful collection.
Paletero Man
by Lucky Diaz
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Try to catch Paletero José to grab some juicy popsicles in this delicious adventure! Mango, strawberry, piña, coco, and more!
The First Tortilla: A Bilingual Story
by Rudolfo Anaya
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Bilingual story of courage and discovery. A small Mexican village is near starvation. There is no rain, and the bean and squash plants are dying. Jade have to go to the Mountain Spirit to ask for rain. Based on an ancient Mexican legend to introduce the importance of corn — and tortillas — as Mexican food staples.
Fry Bread
by Kevin Noble Maillard
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is an evocative depiction of a modern Native American family.
Recipe is included.
La Fiesta de Las Tortillas
by Jorge Argueta
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Remembers the day on which the Spirit of the Corn visited the restaurant that his family owned in El Salvador. The narration is full of suspense and is impregnated with the delicious scents that surrounded the kitchen and that remain intact in the memory and the heart of the author from his childhood.
Sopa de Frijoles / Bean Soup: Un Poema Para Cocinar / A Cooking Poem
by Jorge Argueta
Bilingual recipe in poem form! A young boy helps his mother prepare bean soup using ingredients from Mother Earth.
Salsa: Un Poema Para Cocinar / A Cooking Poem
by Jorge Argueta
Bilingual recipe in poem form! A young boy and his sister gather ingredients for salsa and grind them up in a molcajete while singing, dancing and pretending that the ingredients are parts of an orchestra.
Guacamole: Un Poema Para Cocinar / A Cooking Poem
by Jorge Argueta
Bilingual recipe in poem form! A little girl puts on her apron and sings and dances around the kitchen as she demonstrates how to make guacamole using a simple recipe of just avocados, limes, cilantro and salt.
Tamalitos
by Jorge Argueta
In this bilingual cooking poem for young children, Jorge Argueta encourages more creativity and fun in the kitchen as he describes how to make tamalitos.
Arroz con leche: Popular Songs and Rhymes from Latin America
by Lulu Delacre
A collection of traditional Latin-American songs, music, and rhymes, in Spanish and English.
Kamalata's Kitchen: Taste Buds in Harmony
by Derek Wallace, et al.
Kalamata and her alligator sidekick Al Dente join their friend Kyo to discover how different ideas and ingredients create magic when mixed together!
Informational Books
An expert forager provides an introduction to the most readily accessible and tasty salad greens, nuts, teas, seasonings, and other foodstuffs available in the gardens, fields, woodlands, and parking strips of North America. Includes charts of plant uses, seasonal availability, and glossary.
Instruction on the collection, preparation, and utilization of 50 regional edible plants how to best utilize the most common wild desert food plants of the Sonoran region.
Master cook Carolyn Niethammer opens a window on the incredible bounty of the southwestern deserts and offers recipes to help you bring these plants to your table. Sections featuring twenty-three different desert plants and 150 recipes include basic information, harvesting techniques, and general characteristics.
The seemingly inhospitable Sonoran Desert has provided sustenance to indigenous peoples for centuries. This volume presents information on nearly 540 edible plants used by people of more than fifty traditional cultures of the Sonoran Desert and peripheral areas.
The Border Cookbook: Authentic Home Cooking of the American Southwest and Northern Mexico
by Bill Jamison and Cheryl Alters Jamison
This James Beard Book Award-winning cookbook combines the beauty of Mexican and Southwest cooking, bringing together the large region's Native American, Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo culinary roots into one book. Over 300 recipes explore common elements and regional differences of border cooking.
By Carolyn Niethammer
Drawing on thousands of years of foodways, Tucson cuisine blends the influences of Indigenous, Mexican, mission-era Mediterranean, and ranch-style cowboy food traditions. This book offers a food pilgrimage, where stories and recipes demonstrate why the desert city of Tucson became American’s first UNESCO City of Gastronom
Connections with Family, Place and Personal Histories
Blue Watermelon Project / Chef in the Garden
Group of chefs, restaurateurs, and community food advocates that works with students, parents, educators, and the community to assist schools in rethinking relationships with food.
Earth Day Poetry : Arizona - Sonoran Desert Museum
Earth Day Poetry Contest
For children in grades K-6. Winners from each grade level are chosen.
Each student who entered writes a poem about the Sonoran Desert — how this place is their home, or animals, plants, the landscape, observations, feelings, hopes, food — whatever is important to that student.
by Amanda Salcido Castillo and Patricia Preciado Martin
A collaboration between Castillo, a child of Canoa, and Martin, a native Arizonan author known for documenting Arizona’s Mexican American history and culture. Together they collected information for the book, which is part cookbook and part memoir, as it not only features recipes (using ingredients that were grown in the Canoa family gardens), but photos, drawings and stories that include Mexican dichos or sayings.
by Linda Ronstadt
Ronstadt's story told through music and food in the Sonoran Desert, set in her hometown of Tucson. Ronstadt's memoir celebrates the many flavors and resilient people on both sides of what was once a porous border where people of different roots exchanged recipes and gathered around campfires to sing the songs that shaped Ronstadt's music and heritage.
Tucsonense Podcast: featuring Patricia Preciado Martin
Patricia Preciado Martin is an author, oral historian, and speaker whose work has been invaluable in preserving and sharing stories of Mexican Americans.
Meals and Memoirs II: Recipes and Recollections of African Americans in Tucson, Arizona
by The Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society-Tucson Chapter and Tani Sanchez, PhD
Sonoran Desert School Gardener's Almanac
The Sonoran Desert School Gardener's Almanac is a free resource for teachers, students, and the community at large. It is an annual publication that is designed to connect teachers and learners to the Sonoran Desert, its food systems, and communities. They partner with local knowledge holders, artists, and organizations to be sure this resource reflects this special region we call home. Their goal with the almanac project is that it will give voice to community members who have long been under-represented yet hold valuable knowledge and skills in growing food and using plants medicinally.
Tucson Festival of Foods
By Carillo School
This is a school project with recipes from families at Carillo Elementary in Tucson, Arizona.
My Tata's Remedies / Los Remedios de Mi Tata
by Roni Capin Rivera-Ashford
Introduce young readers to safe and effective natural remedies from the native traditions of the American Southwest as grandfather Tata teaches his grandson about his healing herbal remedies. Includes an herbal remedies glossary at the end of the book with useful information about each plant and botanically correct drawings.
My Nana's Remedies / Los Remedios de Mi Nana
by Roni Capin Rivera-Ashford
Warm and loving grandmother prepares a variety of traditional remedies for her young granddaughter, remedies to treat everything from an upset stomach to being frightened at night. The text is accompanied by the vibrant and captivating art of Edna San Miguel.
Nopalitos Para la Comida
by Maria Luisa Barrera
Memoir of a little girl and her grandmother, harvesting and cooking nopales.
Connections with Plants and Animals of the Sonoran Desert
The Night Flower: The Blooming of the Saguaro Cactus
by Lara Hawthorne
Desert flower that blooms for just one night a year . As the summer sun sets over the Sonoran desert in Arizona, wildlife gathers to witness a very special annual event.
The Seed and the Giant Saguaro
by Jennifer Ward
It all begins with the tiniest of seeds. Here you will discover how a pack rat, a rattlesnake, a roadrunner, a coyote, and even the clouds above all play a role in helping a small seed grow into a giant saguaro
Mesquite Pods Poster
by Desert Harvesters
Sonoran Mandala
by Desert Harvesters
Classroom Extensions
Pascua Yaqui Tribe Department Of Language & Culture
The Yaqui Tribe Community Has posted several cooking demonstrations as part of the indigenous food festival on its facebook page.
Barrio Anita, along with other neighborhoods in Tucson, was home to several markets owned by Chinese immigrants. These became the local groceries for families.
During StoryShare K-12 Curriculum, students turn their original stories into short plays and videos while they explore roles as playwrights, actors, directors, and video editors. The collaborative design of the program supports social and emotional learning as students communicate goals, give and receive feedback, manage timelines, and navigate decision making for the common good.
StoryShare residencies are tailored to a school or organization’s specific needs, whether that be in-school, after-school, and for summer programs. StoryShare has been successfully implemented with language learners, accelerated learners, and in traditional and special needs classrooms.