Display: Desert Reads

The Night Flower
By Lara Hawthorne

As the summer sets over the desert, creatures gather for a very special event. The saguaro cactus is about to bloom. Join pollinating fruit bats, howling mice, and other animals on their journey to visit the flower in this beautiful nature-inspired story.

Hoot and Howl Across the Desert: Life in the World's Driest Deserts
By Vassiliki Tzomaka

Discover the remarkable plants and animals that live in the world's driest climates -- both hot and cold! With beautifully illustrated landscapes, this book proves just how much life exists in the world's deserts. Travel around the globe and encounter hundreds of rare and little-known plants and animals that thrive in dry environments.

Who Needs a Desert?: A Desert Ecosystem
By Karen Patkau

Describes creatures as well as ecological features and includes fact-filled notes, a useful glossary, and comprehensive mappages.

Joshua Tree National Park
By Jodie Shepherd

Young readers will love exploring Joshua Tree National Park where the oldest rocks are about 1.7 billion years old! They'll also enjoy discovering the park's plants, animals, and other landforms -- all in the pages of this fun and fascinating book.

I've Got Eyes!: Exceptional Eyes of the Animal World
By Julie Murphy

Animals in varied habitats describe unique features of their eyes and how they are adapted for the jungle, the deep ocean, the desert, and even the dark. From bulging eyes to hiding eyes, handlebar eyes to double-decker eyes, young readers will learn about the diversity of the animal world in this nonfiction picture book.

Dig, Wait, Listen: A Desert Toad's Tale
By April Pulley Sayre
Illustrated by Barbara Bash

A spadefoot toad waits under the sand for the rain, hears the sounds of other desert animals, and eventually mates and spawns other toads.

Over on a Desert: Somewhere in the World
By Marianne Collins Berkes

A counting book in rhyme that presents various animals and their offspring that dwell in desert environments around the world, from a mother camel and "her little calf one" to a father fennec fox and "his little kits ten."

Coyote Raid in Cactus Canyon
By Jim Arnosky

Four young coyotes harass the animals in a desert canyon until they run into a rattlesnake.

Survival at 120 Above
By Debbie S. Miller
Illustrated by Jon Van Zyle

Introduces the variety of animals who call the Australian Simpson Desert home and shows how they have adapted to survive extreme temperatures.

Comments

Funny Farm by Mark Teague 2009

There are things I liked about Mark Teague's newest book, Funny Farm , and things I didn't like. Where should I start? I'll do the "didn'ts" first. The illustrations show animals personified. Well, some of the animals are. The main characters, Edward, and his farm family relatives, all dogs, are humanized. They stand upright, do farm chores, eat at a table, wear clothes, knit (yes, with paws) and sleep in beds. Most everybody else on and around the farm, who are also animals, act like animals. They are outside, roll in mud, live in the barn, and require care from their owners. It struck me the most on the page spread where there are pigs playing in puddle in the rain and Edward, a black and white boxer, watches from inside the house. I thought "You're a dog! Go play with them!" But, alas, he can't, seeing as how he goes through his entire visit to the farm wearing a suit and red bow tie. Another picture that bothered me was the maple syrup pa...

The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forester 2008

J Fiction 328 pages I almost didn't finish this book. I got to Chapter 4, and was just about ready to quit (a kind of slow story about a girl, name of Piper McCloud, who discovers she can fly, parents freak out, she becomes a social outcast, yadda, yadda) but suddenly, right there in Chapter 4, the story takes a sharp turn and becomes really interesting . Piper finds herself in the company of others like her, but not "fliers", and under the care and authority of Dr. Hellion. I won't even tell you any more. Read this book. Forester does a great job of keeping you wondering who's the good guy and who's the bad? Piper is a likeable, strong, endearing character that girl readers will enjoy. But don't NOT give it to boys! The main male character is an extremely intelligent young man who is one of the ones you wonder about . . . good or bad? This is a good one, well worth your time.

Review: The Factory

The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages. Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...

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