Desert is My Mother/ El Desierto Es Mi Madre
Awards
1995 Skipping Stones Book Award in  Nature and Ecology

Teachers & Librarians
Find curriculum activities for
The Desert is My Mother.

Download a teacher's guide from the publisher, Piñata Books/Arte Público Press.

If you have an activity or activities to share, please email these along with your name and school or library name.

Watch a video of a puppet show using the book, given at Valencia Library in Tucson, AZ, April 30, 2011:

25th anniversary 2019

The Desert is My Mother/El desierto es mi madre
Piñata Books/Arte Público Press, illustrated by Daniel Lechon
Bilingual audio edition produced by Lorito Books
Download a hi-res jpeg of the book jacket.
Available as an e-book:   For Kindle   For Nook

The Desert Is My Mother introduces the partnership of an award-winning poet and a prize-winning painter to create a beautiful poetic and artistic rendition of the relationship between people and nature. Rather than being an expanse empty of life and value, the desert is lovingly presented as the provider of comfort, food, spirit and life.

Highlighted Reviews
"With a playful text, this bilingual picture book celebrates a child’s connection with her desert home … The feelings are universal, the words precise and physical."—Booklist

"With the simplest of words, Mora invokes the grand powers of the desert...Mora’s bilingual text  … communicates quiet joy and reverence."—Publishers Weekly

"A lovely extension of the metaphor expressed in the title, the text of this poem is a soothing recitation of the many ways in which the desert cares for the speaker: ‘I say feed me./She serves red prickly pear on a spiked cactus.’"—Cooperative Children’s Book Center

Read more reviews show

Pat Mora by the mural for The Desert is My Mother

Pat by a mural of The Desert is My Mother, by Susan Gamble (1997) at the Valencia Branch of the Pima County Public Library, Tucson, AZ. See mural close-up.