Guest Post: Nora Raleigh Baskin on Magical Realism, Setting & Subway Love

By Nora Raleigh Baskin
for Cynthia Leitich Smith's Cynsations

Subway Love (Candlewick, 2014) is my tenth novel for young readers, my third YA, but it is my very first true magical realism.

It is also my first New York City setting. I was born in New York City, in Brooklyn, and although we moved when I was seven, I still would travel back and forth to visit my grandparents in Manhattan for many years.

The sights, sounds and smells of New York were very real to me and were easy for me to access as...