Best Desert Books for Kids: Picture Books, Nonfiction, and Chapter Books

Since the springtime rains have not come to New Mexico's Chaco Canyon, both Coyote and Badger have a hard time finding food, until they team up together, in a natural history story of desert predators and their struggle for survival.

-from Amazon

"This book is out of print and only available secondhand on Amazon. Try your library or ThriftBooks! It's worth hunting down—my kids and I really liked learning that it's true that coyotes and badgers have been known to team up and help each other hunt!"

-Elizabeth, Team Knowledge Crates

It is another hot day in the desert. Birds and other animals scurry about looking for food. When they get tired they stop to rest at a giant cactus. It is their hotel in the desert! Many different animals live in the cactus hotel. It protects them; and they protect it, by eating the pests that could harm the cactus. The cactus grows larger and larger and will live for about two hundred years. This story—about a desert, a giant cactus, and the animals who live in it—is one that even the youngest child will understand and enjoy.

-from Amazon

A lavish introduction to the Sonora desert and its wildlife brings readers into the beautiful and mysterious world of speckled road runners, ocelots, green lizards, mountain lions, and coyotes.

-from Amazon

In the early morning hours, an artist stirs. Gathering her paints and notebook, she heads into the Arizona Sonoran Desert to explore its treasures. Sketching, painting, and writing, she records all that she sees and as night falls, she spreads out her pictures to make this scrapbook of her day, from dawn to dusk.

-from Amazon

Under the sand, a spadefoot toad waits for the sound of rain. She remains in her burrow as creatures, including peccaries, a rattlesnake, and a kangaroo rat, pass above her but finally emerges to lay her eggs when the distinctive patter of rain begins. Clear, often lovely watercolors illustrate the creature's wait, the desert animals, and the brief time the toad and tadpoles spend on the desert floor after the rain. Notes at the end give additional information on the habits of this toad and her animal neighbors.

-from Amazon

Brett's sumptuous retelling of “The Three Little Pigs” is set in southern Africa and stars three small guinea-pig-like creatures that live in rock crevices in the Namib desert. The three dassies, garbed in traditional African dresses and turbans, are harassed by an eagle, who, like the wolf in the traditional tale, wants them for supper. 

-from Amazon

Over and Under the Canyon takes young readers on a thrilling tour of a desert canyon ecosystem. Over the canyon, the sun scalds the air, baking desert mud to stone. But under the shade of the cliffs hides another world, where bighorn sheep bound from rock to rock on the hillside, roadrunners make their nests in sturdy cacti, and banded geckos tuck themselves into the shelter of the sand. Discover the wonders concealed in the curves of the canyon, the magic of a desert wildflower bloom, and all the unexpected creatures that bring the desert to life.

-from Amazon

This gorgeous, poetic story follows the unexpected journey of a lone tumbleweed making its way across the desert. Using simple, succinct text and richly colored art, Adriana Hernández Bergstrom follows one tumbleweed on its journey across a desert unexpectedly teeming with life. Extensive backmatter identifies every plant and animal featured in the book and provides more information on the misunderstood tumbleweed and its ecosystem.

-from Amazon

While searching for food in a house on wheels, a white-footed mouse takes an unexpected trip to the desert and sees some unusual sights.

-from Amazon

"This book is out of print, but if you can find a used copy online, or better yet, one at your library, it's a really sweet and beautifully illustrated story!"

-Elizabeth, Team Knowledge Crates

One girl. One boy. Their lives couldn't be more different. While she turns her shoulder to sandstorms and blistering winds, he cuffs his pants when heavy rains begin to fall. As the weather becomes more severe, their families and animals must flee to safety—and their destination shows that they might be more alike than they seem. The journeys of these two children experiencing weather extremes in India highlight the power of nature and the resilience of the the human spirit.

-from Amazon

It’s a sun-scorched world where clouds rarely come and nothing seems to move. That is, until children ages 6 - 9 up look a little closer to find tortoises, toads, and lizards, not to mention the scary rattlesnake and scorpion. Here, plants send their roots deep into the earth to find water, beetles stand on their head and shoot a stinky spray to fight off enemies, and roadrunners whiz by sleepy turtles and nervous desert mice on their way to ... where? 

-from Amazon

Did you know that Antarctica is the largest desert in the world? It receives so little rain or snow that it is almost as dry as the Sahara! Whether cold, hot, or somewhere in between, a third of Earth's land is part of the desert biome. Learn about the geography and resources of the desert biome as well as how animals and people have adapted to and impacted desert environments. Explore this biome's future and what people can do to help keep it safe.

-from Amazon

Tim Flannery has the answers. In this informed and accessible book, he introduces some of the most spectacular and unusual creatures in our planet’s deserts and grasslands with in-depth and often-bizarre facts. Flannery ties together concepts of climate change, evolution, conservation, and taxonomy throughout each animal’s profile, firmly connecting it to its environment while sparking wonder at its role in the natural world. Packed with vibrant illustrations and guided by real-life anecdotes from one of our greatest science communicators, Weird, Wild, Amazing! Desert teaches readers to cherish and delight in our planet’s ecosystems with Flannery’s signature mix of humor and wisdom.

-from Amazon

The earth is definitely getting warmer. There's no argument about that, but who or what is the cause? And why has climate change become a political issue? Are humans at fault? Is this just a natural development? While the vast majority of scientists who study the environment agree that humans play a large part in climate change, there is a counterargument. Author Gail Herman presents both sides of the debate in this fact-based, fair-minded, and well-researched book that looks at the subject from many perspectives, including scientific, social, and political.

-from Amazon

Could you survive being lost in the desert? Imagine being attacked by a rattlesnake in North America's Sonoran Desert, wild dogs in Africa's Kalahari Desert, or a redback spider in the Australian Outback. How far would you be willing to go to save your own life? Would it work? Flip through these pages to find out!

-from Amazon

"This was my second-grader's first experience with choose your own adventure stories and he just LOVED it! We actually wrote our own choose your own adventure story after reading it. You can see that here!"

-Elizabeth, Team Knowledge Crates

Jack and Annie travel back in time to a desert in the Middle East. There they meet a Bedouin tribe and learn about the way that they live. From camel rides and oases to ancient writings and dangerous sandstorms, here’s another Magic Tree House filled with all the mystery, history, magic, and old-fashioned adventure that kids love to read about.

-from Amazon

Learn all about life in the desert with this nature-themed installment of DK Books’ new educational fiction series for children aged 7 to 9 years old. 

Meet the Secret Explorers - a band of brainiac kids from all around the world, here to take young readers on a series of fact-filled fictional adventures! In this story, Leah the biology explorer and Connor the marine expert set off into the Mexican desert. There, they have to rescue a pack of wolf cubs while avoiding dust storms! The gripping narrative is filled with scientific facts as the explorers navigate the desert and come across different species and habitats.

-from Amazon

Luciana and her family are headed to Chile for winter break. Luci can't wait to see her cousins - but the reunion doesn't go as planned, and Luci feels like an outsider in her own family. Just then she receives a surprise invite from Claire Jacobs, her frenemy from astronaut training camp, to join her at the Mars habitat in the desert and watch NASA scientists at work. It's an offer too good to refuse, so Luci decides to leave her cousins and give her friendship with Claire a second chance. But what if Luci has made the wrong decision? What if she still can't trust Claire? When disaster strikes in the desert, Luci finds out the truth.

-from Amazon

Twelve-year-old Jolene spends every day she can at the library watching her favorite livestream: The Desert Aviator, where twelve-year-old “Addie Earhart” shares her adventures flying an ultralight plane over the desert. Then, one day, it all goes wrong: Addie's engine abruptly stops, and Jolene watches in helpless horror as the ultralight plummets to the ground and the video goes dark. Jolene knows that Addie won’t survive long in the extreme summer desert heat. With no one to turn to for help and armed with only a hand-drawn map and a stolen cell phone, it's up to Jolene to find a way to save the Desert Aviator. 

-from Amazon