Wednesday, September 12, 2012

REFORMA Review: Chavela and the Magic Bubble


Chavela and the Magic Bubble. 
By Monica Brown. Illus. by Magaly Morales. 
New York: Clarion Books, 2010. Unpaged. $16.00 (Hardcover). ISBN 978-0-547-241-24197-5.
Grades PreK-3.  
English with Spanish.
Little Chavela loves chewing gum and blowing it into bubbles of all shapes and sizes. She especially enjoys sharing a piece of her chicle with her Abuelita and listening to stories about her grandmother’s childhood in Mexico. One morning the young girl finds a package of Magic Chicle which she chews and blows into a magnificent pink bubble that transports her back in time to the Mexican village where her great grandfather was a chiclero harvesting the sap of the sapodilla tree to make gum. While in this rainforest, Chavela experiences its supernatural beauty and meets a mysterious girl with a doll in a blue dress. Imbued with magical realism, this mouth-watering, snappy tale will dazzle readers as its text changes shape along with Chavela’s many bubbles. At the same time, Morales’ blazing, color-suffused illustrations will have young children pouring over the book for hours in search of their own magical stick of chicle. An adaptation of the Latin American folk song “Tengo una muñeca” is also included along with an author’s note chicleros.

Highly Recommended.


Naidoo, J. C. (2010). Chavela and the Magic Bubble. Written by Monica Brown. Illus. by Magaly Morales. REFORMA Newsletter, 28(1/2), 19.

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