Alma Madrigal’s husband Pedro dies when they are trying to escape armed conflict with their three infant children, Julieta, Pepa, and Bruno. Alma’s passion and energy to save her family is magically captured by a candle she has in her possession at the time of the escape and death of her husband. The magical candle creates a sentient (living ) home (a Casita) for them to live in when they find the new location for their home. It also protects gives almost every member of Alma’s family a magical superhuman ability they call gifts. . Of Alma’s three children, Bruno is ostracized by the family as he is given the gift of precognition, the ability to fortell events before they occur, but the gift is not precise and some of his predictions result in confusion and conflict in the family, who begin to reject him eventually driving him away. Over time family grows and begin to build a town called Encanto. The story opens when Alma is much older and now the matriarch of her family, called Abuela (grandma). Her children are grown with children of their own. One of Julieta’s children, Mirabel is unable to receive a gift, and this saddens her and as her family definitely treats her differently to others in the family