Mañanaland

There is a thin boundary between stories, dreams, and reality in Mañanaland. The book uses fairy-tale language, which creates a timeless and magical mood where anything is possible. This structure also represents the importance of storytelling to the novel’s characters. Max processes his world through stories, including the stories he swaps with Buelo in the evenings and the stories he grew up hearing about Santa Maria’s various myths and legends. These stories come to life for Max at various points in the book, highlighting Max’s vivid imagination and imbuing Mañanaland with magic. Stories help Max cope with loss and fear, and in turn Max uses storytelling to help others find resiliency and hope.

Stories are a source of strength, connection, and wisdom in the novel. The characters bond through the stories they tell. Buelo uses his story about “The Secret Bridge and the Guardabarrera” to pass wisdom and instructions to Max. Max also bonds with Isadora over their shared love for stories. Hearing Isadora’s stories about her life allows Max to understand the hardships Isadora has faced, and to gain a greater compassion for her circumstances. In turn, sharing stories helps the characters feel connected and find strength when facing challenges along the way.

Characters and symbols from Max’s favorite stories appear throughout the book. helping express Max’s emotional journey. These moments are sometimes straightforward and logical, such as a peregrine falcon reminding Max and his friends of their village’s local legend, or when Max discovers Yadra is real. There are also moments that occur when Max is in a dream-like trance, making them more ambiguous, such as when the tower called La Reina Gigante turns into a true giant queen and visits Max on a stormy night to sing him a lullaby or when Max holds a glowing bubble of river water where he finds tomorrow. The book suggests that it doesn’t matter whether these magical moments are real or not—life is more enjoyable and easier to cope with when lived through a lens of imagination. This is also revealed through the conflict between Papá and Max. Papá is a serious character who wants to protect Max from believing in “dreams that would never come true” (237). He constantly tries to keep Max grounded. However, Max tells Papá at the end of the novel: “I like illusions and hope and dreams, whether they come true or not” (237). For Max, feeding his imagination and allowing magic into his reality gives life greater meaning.

Mañanaland depicts a world haunted by spirits of hidden ones: “Sometimes when heavy mist shrouded the hills and Santa Maria fell silent, their ghosts could be heard whispering prayers to the giant queen for her protection and guidance [...] Everyone knew someone who knew someone who had heard them” (7). Hidden ones are a lingering presence over Santa Maria. Their names are carved in the stone of La Reina Gigante, documenting their journey and existence as they pass through Santa Maria. Embers of their existence carry on through ghost stories told in the village. The haunted memory of hidden ones are reminders of the pain and loss endured at the hands of cruel people and the ghostly existence of those who must disappear and hide their identities to escape hardship.

The ideas of haunting, hiding, and disappearance are important for Max. He has no memory of his mother, and his family won’t talk about her since the memories cause Papá pain. Max’s mother is an aching absence in Max’s life, “a peculiar nothingness tucked behind a veil of secrecy that no one was willing to lift” (26). Max struggles throughout the book with questions about why his mother left, and whether it means Max is “unworthy” (26). Her absence haunts Max just as the hidden ones haunt Santa Maria: through ghostly lullabies at the tower, to a dream-like moment where La Reina Gigante turns into a giant queen and appears as a motherly presence singing Max to sleep.

Max’s mother was a hidden one. This is likely the reason she left Max’s family with no explanation. When she left, she took everything with her that represented her existence—including Max’s proof of birth. This amplifies Max’s anxieties about his identity and future. Without a birth certificate, Max has no documented proof of his existence. This threatens to bar him from the local fútbol team, as well as future necessities like driving. These conflicts resolve by the end of the novel, when Max learns to accept the mysteries around his mother’s absence and Papá manages to register Max’s birth. However, Max must first experience these struggles and complete a journey as a guardian to truly understand the burdens faced by hidden ones.

As Max makes his first journey as guardian, he comes to better understand the difficult truths of danger and cruelty. Max meets Isadora from Abismo, who at her very young age was already forced to work for a violent man after suffering the loss of her parents, who died protesting for workers’ rights. Max also learns about Yadra, whose parents emotionally abandoned her when she tried to live authentically. Max is also confronted with the dangerous risk that hidden ones face as they make their journey. At first, Max underestimates the risk he’s taking when he volunteers to be a guardian. However, armed men pursue Max and Isadora, hoping to earn a reward by turning Isadora over to the violent man from Abismo. These experiences help Max understand what evil exists in the world, and the importance of helping people out of these harsh circumstances. These experiences also help Max understand the fear and danger his mother faced while living in Santa Maria, where many of the people believe hidden ones are criminals. Max comes to understand the complexities around why his mother left, helping Max find closure.