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YOUNGER FICTION
Haydu, Corey Ann

Hand-Me-Down Magic: Stoop Sale Treasure

114 pp. | HarperCollins/Tegen | June, 2020 | Trade ISBN 978-0-06-287825-0 $12.99 | Ebook ISBN 978-0-06-287826-7
(2) 1-3 Illustrated by Luisa Uribe. 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.
Reviewer: Julie Hakim Azzam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2020

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