Magic
Once Upon a Faraway Land
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
In her debut as author and illustrator, Mirelle Ortega shares her own story of growing up near her family’s pineapple farm in Mexico, where she learned the true meaning of magic
I learned that magic isn’t good or bad, it just is. Sometimes it gives, sometimes it takes. Sometimes life blossoms, sometimes it wilts.
Growing up on a pineapple farm in Mexico, a girl discovers the true meaning of the word magic in this truly magical picture book about change and transformation of all kinds—what we can’t control, such as natural disasters and loss, and what we can. Magic can transform dirt into pineapples, seeds into trees, wool into blankets, words into stories, blank pages into pictures—a story into a picture book.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Let me tell you about the place I'm from," writes debut author-illustrator Ortega, and from this book's very first image, the narrator's sun-soaked homeland, seen from a bird's-eye view, is "brimming with magia." Palm fronds of green and olive wave above slopes of rich red land, "a place where rain kisses the earth and wild things flourish. And people turn wilderness into harvest." There, her abuelo "turned dirt into a sea of golden pineapples, glimmering under the warm Mexican sun.... And my abuelita taught me to string words together to make up stories." Ortega's promising setup turns into a broad recounting of sentiments occurring "in my faraway land": "Even in the darkest moments, the spark of magic shines through." Though intricately patterned images suggest accompanying events, the lack of narrative structure results in an elusive, personal-feeling portrait of one speaker's maturation. An author's note concludes. Ages 4–8.
