Rudolfo A. Anaya

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Rudolfo A. Anaya's Latest Book

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  • Bibliography:
    37 Books (3 Series)
  • First Book:
    April 1988
  • Latest Book:
    January 2022
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Full Series List in Order

Chupacabra

1 - Curse of the Chupacabra (Sep-2006)
2 - Chupacabra and the Roswell UFO (Oct-2008)

Owl in a Straw Hat

1 - Owl in a Straw Hat (Oct-2017)
2 - No More Bullies! (Nov-2021)
3 - New Mexico Christmas Story (Nov-2021)

Sonny Baca

1 - Zia Summer (Jun-1995)
2 - Rio Grande Fall (Sep-1996)
3 - Shaman Winter (Feb-1999)
4 - Jemez Spring (Mar-2005)

Book List in Order: 37 titles

  • Heart of Aztlan

    PEN Center West Award Winner: A novel of myth and migration set in a mid-twentiethâ€"century New Mexico barrio, by the author of Bless Me, Ultima. Today is the day Benjie Chávez and his family will leave the town of Guadalupe behind. Far from the la...

  • Voces

  • Tierra

  • Albuquerque

  • Bless Me, Ultima

    A bildungsroman about a young Mexican-American boy, Antonio, in a New Mexican village during the 1940s. He faces a choice that will determine the course of his entire life: to follow his father's family's nomadic lifestyle, or to settle down to agric...

  • Alburquerque

    'In April of 1880 the railroad reached la villa de Albuquerque in New Mexico. Legend says the Anglo stationmaster couldn't pronounce the first 'r' in 'Albur', so he dropped it as he painted the station sign for the city. Nobody knows the real 'Albuqu...

  • Legend of la Llorona

  • Zia Summer

    Sonny Baca - 1

    Meet Sonny Baca. He's a small-time Albuquerque private-eye on a big mission: to find the killer of his cousin Gloria. Neither beauty nor a hot-shot politician husband had protected Gloria from a ghastly end. Her body had been drained of its blood, an...

  • The Farolitos of Christmas

    With her grandfather to ill to cut the wood for the traditional luminarias and her father in the hospital, it is up to Luz to create her own little lanterns, or farolitos, which she makes out of candles, paper bags, and sand, for a special Ch...



  • Jalamanta

    Thirty years ago, Jalamanta and his people were exiled in the desert, banished from the Seventh City for challenging the monolithic dogmas of the Central Authority. Now, Jalamanta returns to his wife, Fatimah, and to his village full of new wisdom ab...

  • Rio Grande Fall

    Sonny Baca - 2

    Everyone loves the Hot Air Balloon Fiesta de Albuquerque. This year the fiesta is more profitable and livelier than ever. Until a body plummets from the heavens. PI. Sonny Baca immediately recognizes the corpse as a key witness in his cousin's murde...

  • Maya's Children: The Story of la Llorana

  • Shaman Winter

    Sonny Baca - 3

    Wheelchair-bound by day, Alburquerque P.I. Sonny Baca is tormented by night with strange dreams: One by one, his female ancestors are abducted before his eyes. Soon Sonny learns the worst. His old archenemy, Raven, is controlling the nightmares and p...

  • Roadrunner's Dance

    To clear the tyrannical Rattlesnake from the main road of her southwestern village, Desert Woman enlists the help of Coyote, Raven, Eagle, and Heron to form an agile and fast-footed new animal that can outwit their nemesis....

  • Tortuga

    American Book Award Winner: A novel of a New Mexico teenager’s journey of physical and spiritual recovery from the author of Bless Me, Ultima. When the story opens, the eponymous hero of Rudolfo Anaya’s novel is in an ambulance en route to a hosp...

  • Serafina's Stories

    This innovative novel combines Spanish folktales with Native American legends to create a captivating Southwestern version of The Arabian Nights. Like Scheherezade, who ensured her survival by telling her royal husband stories, the title character in...

  • The Santero's Miracle: A Bilingual Story

    In this bilingual story of faith, Don Jacobo has a dream that, in the end, is a reminder that miracles do happen. Jacobo is teaching his visiting grandson Andrés how to become a santero. Christmas is coming, snow is falling in the village, and th...

  • Jemez Spring

    Sonny Baca - 4

    When the governor of New Mexico is found drowned in the Bath House at Jemez Springs, Albuquerque private eye Sonny Baca is called in to investigate. As he soon learns, murder is only the beginning of the evil that Sonny must sort out. Someone has pla...

  • The Man Who Could Fly and Other Stories

    "I am continually thinking stories," writes Rudolfo Anaya. "Even when I am working on a novel, the images for stories keep coming."

    Considered by many to be the founder of modern Chicano literature, Rudolfo Anaya, best known for Bless Me, U...



  • Curse of the Chupacabra

    Chupacabra - 1

    Is the ChupaCabra mythical or real? Stories of the creature abound in Latino communities. The illusive creature is said to suck the blood of goats. Thus, its name, goatsucker. Whenever a backyard goat or chicken is mysteriously killed, the story s...

  • The First Tortilla

    The First Tortilla is a moving, bilingual story of courage and discovery. A small Mexican village is near starvation. There is no rain, and the bean and squash plants are dying.

    Jade, a young village girl, is told by a blue hummingbird to t...

  • Chupacabra and the Roswell UFO

    Chupacabra - 2

    In this second ChupaCabra mystery, Professor Rosa Medina has just arrived in Santa Fe where she meets Nadine, a mysterious sixteen-year-old who insists that the two of them travel to Roswell, New Mexico. Nadine is convinced that C-Force, a secret ...

  • Juan and the Jackalope

    When Rosita, the loveliest gal in the Pecos River Valley, offers her delicious rhubarb pie as first prize for the Great Grasshopper Race, a thousand love-struck vaqueros line up for the competition. Of course everyone believes that the legendary c...

  • Randy Lopez Goes Home

    When he was a young man, Randy Lopez left his village in northern New Mexico to seek his fortune. Since then, he has learned some of the secrets of success in the Anglo world -- and even written a book called Life Among the Gringos. But something has...

  • The Crying Woman/La Llorona

    La Llorona, the Crying Woman, is the legendary creature who haunts rivers, lakes, and lonely roads. Said to seek out children who disobey their parents, she has become a "boogeyman," terrorizing the imaginations of New Mexican children and inspiri...

  • Lord of the Dawn

    The legend of QuetzalcĂłatl is the enduring epic myth of Mesoamerica. The gods create the universe, but man must carefully tend to the harmony of the world. Without spiritual attention to harmony, chaos may reign, destroying the universe and civiliza...

  • How Hollyhocks Came to New Mexico

    How Hollyhocks Came to New Mexico is a fanciful folk tale that helps explain the beautiful flowers that can be seen in all parts of the Southwest in the summer and fall. Escaping Herod's wrath, Sueño, a near-sighted angel, takes the Holy Family to N...

  • The Old Man's Love Story

    “There was an old man who dwelt in the land of New Mexico, and he lost his wife.” From that opening line, this tender novella is at once universal and deeply personal. The nameless narrator, a writer, shares his most intimate thoughts about hi...

  • How Chile Came to New Mexico

    How Chile Came to New Mexico is the exciting tale of how New Mexico's premier crop came to the Land of Enchantment. The story shows the importance of Native Americans who helped bring chile to New Mexico through a long journey with many dangers. I...



  • Rudolfo Anaya's the Farolitos of Christmas

    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. ...

  • My Land Sings

    “Filled with ghosts, devils, and tricksters . . . This appealing volume will add diversity to folklore collections.” -- Library Journal Rich in the folklore of his ancestors, Rudolfo Anaya’s tales will delight young readers from...

  • The Sorrows of Young Alfonso


    “The world is full of sorrow,” Agapita whispered to Alfonso.

    Did she stamp those words into his destiny?

    The story of Alfonso, a Nuevo Mexicano, begins with his birth, when the curandera Agapita delivers these hauntin...

  • Owl in a Straw Hat

    Owl in a Straw Hat - 1

    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 ha...

  • ChupaCabra Meets Billy the Kid


    After years of working with at-risk youth, Chicana social worker Rosa Medina leaves Los Angeles’s gang-ridden barrios and street violence to settle in the New Mexican village of Puerto de Luna. Her goal: to write a novel about Bilito -- Bill...

  • New Mexico Christmas Story

    Owl in a Straw Hat - 3

    Acclaimed New Mexico author Rudolfo Anaya presents a northern New Mexico Christmas tale in this third volume from his Owl in a Straw Hat series featuring the loveable Ollie Tecolote and his Wisdom School classmates Uno the Unicorn, Jackie Jackalope, ...

  • No More Bullies!

    Owl in a Straw Hat - 2

    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 (Ollieâ€...

  • The Essays

    “The storyteller’s gift is my inheritance,” writes Rudolfo Anaya in his essay “Shaman of Words.” Although he is best known for Bless Me, Ultima and other novels, his writing also takes the form of nonfiction, and in thes...

Award-Winning Books by Rudolfo A. Anaya

The Crying Woman/La Llorona
2012 New Mexico Book Award -- Children's Picture
2012 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award -- Children's Picture
How Chile Came to New Mexico
2014 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award -- Best Book
2014 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award -- Children's Bilingual
2014 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award -- Cover Design (Large)
How Hollyhocks Came to New Mexico
2013 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award -- Best Book
2013 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award -- Children's Bilingual
2013 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award -- Cover Design (Large)


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Rudolfo A. Anaya has published 37 books.

Rudolfo A. Anaya does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, The Essays, was published in January 2022.

The first book by Rudolfo A. Anaya, Heart of Aztlan, was published in April 1988.

Yes. Rudolfo A. Anaya has 3 series.
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