Sofi and the Magic, Musical Mural/Sofi y el mágico mural musical

Gr 1–3—This bilingual foray into magical realism revolves around a Puerto Rican folkloric symbol, the vejigante. With its horned mask and black "jumpsuit," the devil/trickster figure traditional to the carnavales of Puerto Rico is scary to young Sofi. Her mother sends her to the bodega at the end of the block of their South Bronx neighborhood for some milk. On her way back, she decides to take a closer look at the mural she always sees from her apartment. She crosses the street (by herself, after her mother admonishes her to not talk to "ANYONE!" and to "Go straight to the store and back."). Stepping into illustrator Dominguez's mural, "El Pueblo Cantor," à la Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, she joins the dancers and musicians depicted. In the middle of her dancing, Sofi is caught by surprise when the vejigante appears. He takes the frightened child's hand and spins her until she finds herself transformed into the trickster—costume and all. Sofi is suddenly airborne and flying over the Puerto Rican rain forest El Yunque, until her mother calls her back to her neighborhood. The story is somewhat confusing because the initial setting is vague. The fact that Sofi lives in South Bronx and not in Puerto Rico is not revealed until the glossary, where the location of the mural is given.