Magic Realism

While reading Chapter 6 by Teri S. Lesesne, from the book Adolescent Literacy Turning Promise into Practice, edited by Kylene Beers, Robert Probst and Linda Rief; I was interested to find the topic of magic realism. I had encountered this type of writing in Spanish literature and movies that I had watched in college and was excited to read about the use of it in young adult literature. Magic realism is common in Spanish literature, but I had never heard of it's employment in literature from the US. Will young adult readers be confused when a story suddenly takes an unexpected and logically improbably turn? Or, will they be excited to find literature that makes the impossible seem real? One of the more interesting features of magic realism is that it requires the reader to pay close attention to details as the story unfolds. If one lets their mind wander while reading they may not understand why various events are happening that would not happen outside of the text. Another facet of magic realism is that it leaves a lot of interpretation up to the reader. Symbolism is an important part of magic realism which requires interpretation; however, there is no one way to correctly do this. Each reader, therefore, may take something different away from the text as a result.