In Don’t Call Me Pig: A Javalina Story (RGU Group, 1999) by award-winning Arizona author Conrad J. Storad, we learn that the shy desert creature called the javelina is not a pig at all, but a “collared peccary,” and that “being different makes all the difference.” A great followup to Storad’s book is Josefina Javelina: A Hairy Tale (Rising Moon Books, 2005), the lively biography of one ambitious javalina itching to leave the desert for the bright lights. Author and Tucson resident Susan Lowell amusingly recounts Josefina’s dramatic leaving for Pasadena to be a ballarina. Josefina is discovered by a wolfish-looking agent who compares her to famous predecessors of her species (Gregory Peccary, Cary Grunt, Frank Swineatra, Hairilyn Monroe) and becomes famous, but eventually she gratefully returns home, a star, to perform in her old desert haunts.

In Cactus Hotel by Brenda Z. Guiberson, illustrated by Megan Lloyd (Henry Holt, 1991), kids learn about the venerable and protected saguaro cactus and about the many desert animals it shelters. Did you know the saguaro doesn’t even begin to develop the limbs that define its shape until it’s at least 75 years old? Conrad J. Storad’s Lizards for Lunch (RGU Group, 2002) uses rhyme to get across a lot of information about road runners and their desert life and cuisine. Illustrators Beth Neeley and Don Rantz, who also illustrated Storad’s Don’t Call Me Pig, add much to the charm of this Sonoran special.

Whether you’re preparing for a desert trip, looking for books to remember one by, or just armchair and bedtime traveling, these books will bring alive for children and adults a very special world.