• The dunes in soft light

    White Sands

    National Monument New Mexico

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  • Closures and Missile Tests

    Upcoming Missile Tests: From time to time the missile range that surrounds us performs missile testing that may require the closure of the park or Highway 70. Please follow the link below for up to date information on closures More »

Recommended Reading - Preschool

Bibliography, Preschool - K.

  • Bash, Barbara; Desert Giant: The World of the Saguaro Cactus, Sierra Club Books, Boston, Little Brown, 1989, 30 pages. Good illustrations of plants, animals and people of the desert.
  • Baylor, Byrd; The Desert is Theirs, Aladdin Books, New York, NY, 1987, 28 pages. Interesting book to read to small children.
  • Guiberson, Brenda Z; Cactus Hotel, Henry Holt and Co., NY, 1991, 30 pages. Interesting book to read to small children. Third and fourth grades would enjoy reading it also.
  • Lesser, Carolyn; Storm on the Desert, Harcourt Brace and Co., New York, NY, 1997, 30 pages. Excellent illustrations.
  • Lowell, Susan; The Three Little Javelinas, Northland Publishing, 1992, 28 pages. A Southwestern adaptation of the story of "The Three Little Pigs" which takes place in the Sonoran Desert.
  • Urquhart, Jennifer C.; Creatures of the Desert World, National Geographic Society, 1987, 11 pages. A children’s pop-up book with good information about the desert.
  • Wright-Frierson, Virginia; A Desert Scrapbook: Dawn to Dusk in the Sonoran Desert, Simon and Schuster, New York, NY, 1996, 30 pages. Can be read to young children, or grades 1-3 could read it for themselves. Good illustrations.
Last Updated: Sunday, 18-Apr-2004

Did You Know?

Aerial photo of dunes

The white sands dunefield is an active dunefield. The dunes move from west to east as much as thirty feet per year.