Symbols & Labyrinth Lost
Zoraida Córdova’s Labyrinth Lost, the first book in the Brooklyn Brujas series, centers Alex, the most powerful bruja in a generation who hates magic. She attempts a spell to rid herself of her power, but it backfires, vanishing her family and leaving her to travel to a land in-between with a strange boy she meets if she wants them back.
The original hardcover cover features a girl with yellow-ish flowers looking upwards, with white, red, and black face paint making a skull with patterns on it. From swirls to scallops to web-like details, the skull face paint suggests cultural ties to a Latinx culture, specifically the celebration of El Día de los Muertos. Independently, the washed out detailing in the background, might not have suggested the Latinx representation within the book, but the papel-picado-esque patterns along with the face paint strongly suggests the potential of this story to be a Latinx one.
In an interview with YA Books Central for Labyrinth Lost’s cover reveal, Córdova states,
“Here the cover captures the moment of Alex’s Deathday. For a bruja (witch), the Deathday is synonymous to a human’s Sweet 16 or quinceañera. It is a magical coming of age. In this book, the roots of the ceremony are linked to El Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead).” [10]
which verifies the suggestions the cover was hoping to communicate to readers.
Similarly, Zoraida Córdova’s name hints to the #OwnVoices nature of this story; the back flap of Labyrinth Lost describing her being born in Ecuador and raised in Queens.The symbols—the detailed skull face paint, the patterns in the background—all work in conjunction with each other in order to suggest the Latinx representation in the story. Independently, some of the symbols may not have had the same effect, but working together into a cohesive cover ends up helps communicate more strongly to the reader.
The effects of these symbols can be further examined through the comparison and contrast between the three English-language covers Labyrinth Lost has had since the years of its publication in 2016.