Elements of magic permeate reality throughout Where the Forest Meets the Stars in young Ursa’s worldview. After the “bad men” killed her mother, she needed to create a reality she could control and dealt with her difficult situation by running from the authorities to seek a new home. Upon meeting Jo in the woods, she says she’s an alien and slowly reveals an intricate backstory to support her claim. Jo knows the girl is making it up but also realizes she’s highly intelligent and her strange beliefs are grounded in science: She knows astronomy, reads Jo’s ornithology text, takes an interest in Jo’s fieldwork, and reads sophisticated works like War and Peace and Shakespeare’s plays.

This imposition of supernatural elements on reality is typical of magical realism, a popular genre in literature and other arts that has its roots in 1920s Germany, 1940s Central America, and 1950s Latin America. It’s often used allegorically, unearthing magic in the everyday and celebrating the potential for transcendence amid the ordinary. Magical realism integrates mystical or fantastical elements into a realistic setting or worldview to explore or critique societal, cultural, political, or other aspects of human life from a different

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