Monica Brown - Chavela and the Magic Bubble

Chavela and the
Magic Bubble

by Monica Brown

illustrated by Magaly Morales

C LARION B OOKS Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Boston New York 2010

The word chicle (pronounced chic-lay) is the Spanish word for chewing gum. In English chicle (pronounced chic-lay or chickle, as in pickle,) refers to the sap used as a base in natural chewing gums. In this story, it appears inScriptwhen it is in Spanish and in plain type when it refers to the gum base.

To my very own Chavela, who inspired this book with her many magical questionsM.B.

To my sisters, Yuyi and Elizabeth, my pride and inspirationM.M.

Chavela loved to chew gum. She chewed pink bubblegum, rainbow-colored gum, sugar-free peppermint gum, and sour cherry gumballs. She liked gum that came in rolls, shredded gum, and teeny tiny gumballs that looked like confetti and felt slippery in her mouth. Chavela chomped her chicle every chance she got.

Chavela was especially good at blowing bubbles.
She blew big bubbles shaped like pink balloons
and little bubbles the size of jellybeans.

She could blow bubbles inside of bubbles and two bubbles side by side;
and one time she even blew a bubble shaped like a dog.

On Saturdays, Chavela and her grandmother would split a piece of gum
and go shopping on Market Street. Chavela's abuelita would tell her stories
about the quiet town of playa del Carmen, Mexico, where she grew up.

One morning Abuelita was telling Chavela about the beautiful rainforest
and the birds and the butterflies that lived there, when Chavela blew
a big bubble shaped like a butterfly! "Bravo!" said Abuelita.

Chavela popped her bubble, and they
went into a tiny corner store. Chavela
spotted a kind of gum she had never seen
before. Magic Chicle, the package read, in
letters as blue as the sky. On the back it said, "Deep
in the rainforest of Mexico there is a magical sapodilla tree.
From this tree our amazingchiclecomes." Chavela snatched it up
and paid for it with a pocketful of coins.

On the way home, Chavela asked, "What does a tree have to do with gum?"
"Well, Chavela," explained Abuelita, "gum is made from chicle, the sap of the
sapodilla tree. Did you know that my father was a chiclero? Chicleros
are workers who care for the sapodilla trees and harvest chicle from them."

"But why is the chicle magic?"

"That you will have to find out for yourself,"
Abuelita said with a smile.

Once home, Chavela ran straight to her room and opened her Magic Chicle.
It smelled wildly delicious. She popped a piece in her mouth...and then
another...and another. Yum! Soon the whole package was gone.

Chavela chewed and chewed and then took a deep breath and blew a great big bubble that got bigger...and bigger...and bigger until...

Chavela's feet lifted off the ground and she floated up

and out her bedroom window.