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Sisters in Blue tells the story of two young women—one Spanish, one Puebloan—meeting across space and time. Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda, New Mexico's famous Lady in Blue, is said to have traveled to New Mexico in the seventeenth century. Here Anna M. Nogar and Enrique R. Lamadrid bring her to life, imagining an encounter between a Pueblo woman and Sor María during the nun's mystical spiritual journeys. Tales of Sor María, who described traveling across the earth and the heavens, have traditionally presented her as an evangelist who helped bring Catholicism to the Pueblos. Instead this book, which includes an essay providing historical context, shows a connection between Sor María and her friend Paf Sheuri. The two women find more similarities than differences in their shared experiences, and what they learn from each other has an impact for centuries to come.

La Acequia del Rito y la Sierra in the Mora Valley is the highest and most famous traditional irrigation system in New Mexico. It carries water up and over a mountain ridge and across a sub-continental divide, from the tributaries of the Río Grande to the immense watershed of the Mora, Canadian, Arkansas, and Mississippi Rivers. The names and stories of those who created this acequia to sustain their communities have mostly been lost and replaced by myths and legends. Now, when children ask, some parents attribute the task of moving mountains and changing the course of rivers to Juan del Oso, the stouthearted man whose father was a bear.From the mountains of northern Spain to the Andes in South America, Spanish-speaking people have told ancient legends of Juan del Oso and his friends. In this children's tale, agriculturalist Juan Estevan Arellano and folklorist Enrique Lamadrid share a unique version of a celebrated story that has been told in northern New Mexico for centuries.Part of the Pasó por Aquí Series on the Nuevomexicano Literary Heritage

Winner of the Pablita Verde Award for outstanding children's publication from the Historical Society of New MexicoWinner of the 2012 Southwest Book Award from the Border Regional Library AssociationRecent health scares such as H1N1 influenza have exposed children to frightening information that can be difficult to process. This thoughtful bilingual book helps them understand the abstract concept of large-scale sickness and appreciate the role children play in the health of their community. It introduces young readers to a fascinating aspect of southwest history, and invites discussion of folk medicine and science, while also addressing children's curiosities and fears. Recounting the two most deadly epidemics to strike the Southwest--smallpox in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and influenza during World War I--this beautifully illustrated narrative reveals that with tragedy comes heroism, as demonstrated by the children who bravely transported the smallpox vaccine from Mexico's interior to New Mexico in 1805. Through the eyes of the protagonist José Amado'Amadito'Domínguez--a real child of the flu epidemic era who would later become Taos County's first nuevomexicano physician--folklorist Lamadrid weaves together culture, history, mortality, and hope into a life-affirming lesson.