Hand-Me-Down Magic #1

October 15, 2019
Haydu introduces two young cousins in a new chapter-book series for young readers. Del (short for Delfina) and Alma are cousins, best friends, and, as of moments ago, neighbors on 23rd Avenue. Alma and her family have moved away from their old lakeside home to the brick walk-up apartment building where Alma's father's side of the family lives in the city. On the ground level is the Curious Cousins Secondhand Shoppe, and on the second, third, and fourth floors are Abuelita, Titi, cousins, and more of their Puerto Rican family. When Abuelita takes the girls to a stoop sale, Del finds dangling clip-on earrings and is promptly convinced that they are magical. After a couple flawless, magical days (readers might call them just lucky), Alma is fed up with Del's earrings and crushingly denies their magic. Convinced the earrings are causing them to fight, Alma decides to steal them and puts them out on the stoop for a passerby to take. Readers learn along the way that Alma feels "left out of" her own family, having lived apart from the rest of them for most of her life. They may well wonder why Alma's family has moved, but the story focuses on the conflict between the cousins. Told in alternating third-person with minimal Spanish interspersed, the actual plot lacks luster, and the focus on mundane details slows the book's pacing. Perhaps, with the scene now set, the series' next volume will pick up. Uribe's grayscale depictions are essential companions, depicting Del with dark skin and Alma as pale. Everyday magic fails to create a spark in this book. (Fiction. 6-9)

COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 1, 2020
Alma is excited to be taking up residence with her parents on the fourth floor of 86-and-a-half Twenty-third Avenue, home of her abuelita (and her Curious Cousins Secondhand Shoppe); Alma's best-friend-cousin Del; and other aunts, uncles, and cousins. As she is used to seeing family only on special occasions, though, the sudden shift in frequency leaves Alma feeling "left out of [her] own family." Weekends are spent going to stoop sales in search of items to resell at the shop. A pair of earrings causes tension between the cousins (Del thinks they're magically just for her and that they "found" her; Alma, annoyed, thinks magic "doesn't belong to any one person") before a realistic reconciliation. Short chapters each contain several lively sketchlike illustrations; a two-page cutaway of the apartment building at the outset will have readers continually returning to study its details. This thoughtful first book in a projected series probes questions of what it means to belong to a family and how sensitive children perceive the subtle pressures of conformity. Julie Hakim Azzam

(Copyright 2020 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)