Books published by publisher Museum of New Mexico Press

This book highlights Georgia O'Keeffe's creativity―not on canvas, but in the kitchen where she took great pride in her healthy culinary style. The meals served in her household focused on homegrown and natural foods. The author was Georgia O'Keeffe's personal chef. This new edition features a new foreword by celebrated cookbook author and local food advocate Deborah Madison.

This masterfully written children’s book by New Mexico’s favorite storyteller is a delightful tale about a young owl named Ollie who lives in an orchard with his parents in northern New Mexico. Ollie is supposed to attend school but prefers to hang out with his friends Raven and Crow instead. Ollie’s parents discover he cannot read and they send Ollie off to see his grandmother, Nana, a teacher and farmer in Chimayó. Along the way, Ollie’s illiteracy causes mischief as he meets up with some shady characters on the path including Gloria La Zorra (a fox), Trickster Coyote, and a hungry wolf named Luis Lobo who has sold some bad house plans to the Three Little Pigs. When Ollie finally arrives at Nana’s, his cousin Randy Roadrunner drives up in his lowrider and asks Ollie why he’s so blue. “I’m starting school, and there’s too much to learn, and I can’t read,” Ollie says. “I can’t do it.” Randy explains that he didn’t think he could learn to read either, but he persevered, earned a business degree, and now owns the best lowrider shop in Española! Ollie finally decides he is ready to learn to read. The characters and the northern New Mexico landscape in Owl in a Straw Hat come to life wonderfully in original illustrations by New Mexico artist El Moisés.

This keepsake volume of Rudolfo Anaya’s Christmas writings opens with the classic New Mexico Christmas story The Farolitos of Christmas, Anaya’s heartwarming story of a beloved holiday tradition, of a promise, and of homecoming on Christmas Eve. This Christmas story by one of New Mexico’s best-known authors (Bless Me, Ultima) has delighted children and adults since it was first published in 1987. “Season of Renewal,” Anaya’s narrative of Christmastime in his native state, first appeared thirty years ago in the Los Angeles Times and recounts timeless Hispanic and Native traditions that continue in New Mexico to this day including the reenactments of revered nativity stories, Los Pastores and Las Posadas. Finally, in “A Child’s Christmas in New Mexico, 1944,” Anaya presents us with a storied poem, in stunning verse, never before published. It is Christmas morning, he is a seven-year-old boy, and is running through the icy dawn to his neighbor’s door to seek “mis Crismes,” special treats. That night he and his family walk to midnight Mass where the church choir memorably sings “Las Mañanitas,” a birthday song, to baby Jesus. But there is a bittersweet aspect to looking back on childhood’s magic from an older man’s vantage; the world has changed, the ways of elders are nearly lost, innocence has transitioned to experience. Rudolfo Anaya’s Christmas collection is like a snow globe―shake it, then watch as the scene emerges through the orb revealing tradition, family, community, love. This gift from a master storyteller and New Mexico treasure is sure to be loved by children of all ages for decades to come.

This book, continuously in print since 1983, has become a classic Spanish reference book, widely used in classrooms across the United States. Linguist and folklorist Rubén Cobos, now in his nineties, has been diligently working on revisions for the past decade. Much expanded―the number of pages has increased by seventy―this revised edition will assume its place as the most authoritative reference on the archaic dialect of Spanish spoken in this region.

The adventures and lessons continue in this second book featuring “Owl in a Straw Hat” (Ollie Tecolote). This book tackles the subject of bullying of classmates for being different. Jackie Jackalope is missing from school and the teacher (Ollie’s grandmother) gets to the bottom of it. The kids have been teasing Jackie about her horns and she has run away to her parents in Pot of Gold Land. A contrite Ollie along with Uno the Unicorn (both guilty of teasing) volunteer to find and bring Jackie back to school. Their journey to Jackie’s home leads to encounters with three guardians of the Dark Forest (NM monsters/legends): La Llorona, El Kookoóee, and Skeleton Woman; and the Golden Carp who allows them to cross Rainbow Bridge. They reach Jackie and apologize and take her back to Wisdom School. Rudolfo Anaya’s magical characters are brought to life by illustrator El Moisés.

Victorian women loosed upon the world is a subject that has fascinated armchair travelers and women's history buffs for decades. Immortal Summer is a seven-course meal to satisfy such appetites. Two sisters embark from Pennsylvania in search of soul-broadening experiences in the Indian Southwest, newly opened to intrepid travelers. Amelia Hollenback and her sister Josephine are no ordinary unfettered Victorians, however, for in addition to being courageous, well-educated, and serious students of life, they are also lucky. No less a guide than Charles Lummis, the inveterate traveler and great popularizer of the Southwest, advises them in their travels, and at Hopi they meet the day's most famous photographers and bring back rare images of this and other Indian lands that stand today as priceless pages from the travelogue of an America coming to terms with itself through its female adventurers. The Hollenback letters and photographs form the heart of this brilliantly reassembled grand tour from Ft. Leavenworth to the Grand Canyon, Hopiland, the pueblos of Zuni, Acoma, and Laguna, and assorted colorful spots along the way.

Victorian women loosed upon the world is a subject that has fascinated armchair travelers and women's history buffs for decades. Immortal Summer is a seven-course meal to satisfy such appetites. Two sisters embark from Pennsylvania in search of soul-broadening experiences in the Indian Southwest, newly opened to intrepid travelers. Amelia Hollenback and her sister Josephine are no ordinary unfettered Victorians, however, for in addition to being courageous, well-educated, and serious students of life, they are also lucky. No less a guide than Charles Lummis, the inveterate traveler and great popularizer of the Southwest, advises them in their travels, and at Hopi they meet the day's most famous photographers and bring back rare images of this and other Indian lands that stand today as priceless pages from the travelogue of an America coming to terms with itself through its female adventurers. The Hollenback letters and photographs form the heart of this brilliantly reassembled grand tour from Ft. Leavenworth to the Grand Canyon, Hopiland, the pueblos of Zuni, Acoma, and Laguna, and assorted colorful spots along the way.

Real-life Santa Fe painter Maria Hesch (1909-1994) painted innocent narratives of her life as a young girl growing up along the river and next to her grandfather's alfalfa field that linked the family to the nearby church. In Maria Paints the Hills, acclaimed writer Pat Mora imagines the story of the young Maria revealed in the paintings. She is a sensitive child, alive to the colors and shapes of her world, a child who makes of her solitary playtime the companionship of her budding artful imagination. "Look, Tia," Maria says excitedly. "See the caballitos galloping in the fire? The flames look like little horses." Pat Mora reminds us that children are the original artists.