Did you know elephants have parades, camels have caravans, and porcupines have prickles? From a shoal of aardvarks to a zeal of zebras, kids can learn the names of animal groups in this adorable padded board book. With bright, trendy illustrations and plenty of hidden puns, A Caravan of Camels showcases punny animal families of all kinds from A to Z. Whether it’s a smack, a barrel, or a zeal, it's a family!

Gary Paul Nabhan takes the reader on a vivid and far-ranging journey across time and space in this fascinating look at the relationship between the spice trade and culinary imperialism. Drawing on his own family’s history as spice traders, as well as travel narratives, historical accounts, and his expertise as an ethnobotanist, Nabhan describes the critical roles that Semitic peoples and desert floras had in setting the stage for globalized spice trade. Traveling along four prominent trade routes—the Silk Road, the Frankincense Trail, the Spice Route, and the Camino Real (for chiles and chocolate)—Nabhan follows the caravans of itinerant spice merchants from the frankincense-gathering grounds and ancient harbors of the Arabian Peninsula to the port of Zayton on the China Sea to Santa Fe in the southwest United States. His stories, recipes, and linguistic analyses of cultural diffusion routes reveal the extent to which aromatics such as cumin, cinnamon, saffron, and peppers became adopted worldwide as signature ingredients of diverse cuisines. Cumin, Camels, and Caravans demonstrates that two particular desert cultures often depicted in constant conflict—Arabs and Jews—have spent much of their history collaborating in the spice trade and suggests how a more virtuous multicultural globalized society may be achieved in the future.

Tired of carrying their burdens in the desert, the camels sneak away from the caravan and have exciting adventures as they explore other ways to travel.

Extremely social, camels will blow on each other’s faces as a friendly greeting. They also groan and roar! While most camels are domesticated and few wild camels survive on Earth today, these mammals thrive in a group, sometimes called a caravan. These groups are made up of a male leader, females, and young. Mothers care for their young and the caravan moves around together. Through this book’s photographs of camels, closely paired with easy-to-understand text, young readers will discover how these friendly animals grow and work together within their caravan.