Summary
Best-selling author Rick Riordan presents a brilliant sci-fi romp with Cuban influence by Carlos Hernandez, winner of the 2020 Pura Belpré Award.
"I love this book in every possible universe! With a surprise on every page and two of the most cosmically awesome, vividly unique heroes I've ever read, this sweet, hilarious book made me so happy."--Tui T. Sutherland, author of the New York Times best-selling Wings of Fire series
What would you do if you had the power to reach through time and space and retrieve anything you want, including your mother, who is no longer living (in this universe, anyway)?
When Sal Vidon meets Gabi Real for the first time, it isn't under the best of circumstances. Sal is in the principal's office for the third time in three days, and it's still the first week of school. Gabi, student council president and editor of the school paper, is there to support her friend Yasmany, who just picked a fight with Sal. She is determined to prove that somehow, Sal planted a raw chicken in Yasmany's locker, even though nobody saw him do it and the bloody poultry has since mysteriously disappeared.
Sal prides himself on being an excellent magician, but for this sleight of hand, he relied on a talent no one would guess . . . except maybe Gabi, whose sharp eyes never miss a trick. When Gabi learns that he's capable of conjuring things much bigger than a chicken--including his dead mother--and she takes it all in stride, Sal knows that she is someone he can work with. There's only one slight problem: their manipulation of time and space could put the entire universe at risk.
A sassy entropy sweeper, a documentary about wedgies, a principal who wears a Venetian bauta mask, and heaping platefuls of Cuban food are just some of the delights that await in his mind-blowing novel gift-wrapped in love and laughter.
Endorsed by Rick Riordan, author of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, soon to be a series on Disney+.
Author Notes
Carlos Hernandez has published more than thirty works for fiction, poetry, and drama, most notably a book of short stories for adults entitled The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria . He is an English professor at City University of New York, and he loves to both play games and design them. He lives with his wife, Claire, in Queens, New York. Follow him on Twitter: @WriteTeachPlay.
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-8-Sal Vidón is attending a new school, with new bullies and new teachers who don't understand the needs of a student with Type 1 diabetes. He also causes rips in time and space by transporting objects from other universes. Sometimes he transports harmless prank items, but sometimes he goes home to find his long-dead mother cooking yucca in the kitchen. When Sal meets Gabi Reál, student body president and all-around firebrand, they begin a friendship that may break the universe-or save it. Delightfully weird, this is unlike any other book in the middle grade canon. Hernandez has managed to include conflict and excitement into his first novel for young people, without falling into the trap of unrealistic villainy. Every character is doing their best, even when that best doesn't turn out well. Readers need to be comfortable with a suspension of disbelief and accept unexplained backstories. Many elements of the story, like Sal's superpowers and Gabi's family dynamics (including a robot parent,) are left mostly unexplained. Fans who enjoyed Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time and Rick Riordan's works will love Sal and Gabi, as will readers looking for upbeat fiction with Spanish-speaking characters. VERDICT Hernandez offers a rip-roaring and emotionally resonant sci-fi adventure. A must-have for middle school or upper elementary libraries, especially where there are science fiction and fantasy fans.-Jeri Murphy, C.F. Simmons Middle School, Aurora, IL © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this charming middle grade romp, 13-year-old Sal VidA3n, a type 1 diabetic and amateur magician with the inexplicable ability to open holes in the space-time continuum, adjusts to his new life at Miami's Culeco Academy of the Arts. It's not easy: the teachers are eccentric, his fellow students think he's a brujo (a bad witch), and every so often Sal brings versions of his deceased mother-"Mami Muerta"-over from other dimensions, much to his father and stepmother's consternation. Making friends with ambitious journalist Gabi Real and her unconventional family helps ease the transition. When Gabi's hospitalized baby brother takes a turn for the worse, Sal's power might just be the solution they need-unless it destroys the universe. This vibrant tale from Cuban-American Hernandez (The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria for adults) is peppered with Spanish dialogue and slang, filled with mouthwatering plates of Cuban cuisine, and highly inclusive, featuring a sprawling, memorable cast, including Gabi's collection of gender-spanning dads. A nonstop sense of wonder accompanies a genuinely heartwarming and humorous tone, and Sal and Gabi are clearly a fictional team destined for greatness. Ages 8-12. Agent: DongWon Song, Morhaim Literary. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Salvador Vidn is the new kid at Miami's magnet school Culeco Academy of the Arts, but being at a special school doesn't protect Sal from trouble.Bullies are everywhere, but seventh-grader Sal knows just how to handle a difficult kid like Yasmany Robles. Obviously, you deal with a bully by opening a portal into another universe, taking a raw chicken from it, and planting it in the bully's locker. But you cannot just go opening portals into other universes without some consequences. For one, Sal gets sent to the principal on only his third day at Culeco and in the process meets Gabi Rel, who isn't buying Sal's innocent-magician act. The more pressing issue is that when Sal opens portals, sometimes his deceased mother comes through from alternate universes where she still existsMami Muerta, in Sal's words. But if you could bring your dead mother back, wouldn't you? The story moves quickly, with lots of multiverse traffic, school hijinks, and strong, smart, diverse characters. Most are Cuban-American in various shades of brown, like Sal, Gabi, and Yasmany, and Hernandez effortlessly folds in multiple intersectionalities, including Sal's diabetes and Gabi's unusual, delightfully matter-of-fact family structure. Secondary characters receive as much care and love as the primary cast, and readers will find themselves laughing out loud and rooting for Sal, Gabi, and even Yasmany until the very end.This book, drenched in Cuban Spanish and personality, is a breath of fresh air. (Science fiction. 10-13) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Ever since Salvador Vidó n lost his mami at the age of 8, he has used sleight-of-hand magic as both a way to forget about the loss and as a way to make others happy. When Sal bumps into Yasmany Robles at school, he uses his quick thinking and his magic skills along with a special secret to make a chicken appear in Yasmany's locker; subsequently, he soon finds himself in a meeting with the principal and Gabrielle Reál, student council president, who begins to suspect Sal has a secret. And she's right: only Sal's physicist dad and his stepmom know that Sal can create tears in the universe and pull objects into this world from other realms; those objects include Sal's mom, whom he has brought through more than once. When Sal discovers that Gabi can see the tears he creates, Sal is relieved that he can finally share his secret, and before long, he discovers that Gabi, Yasmany, and the world around him are much more complex than he imagined. Artfully balancing comical antics with a meaningful exploration of grief, Hernandez fills his fast-paced novel with an intriguing blend of sf, folklore, and Cuban culture and populates it with delightfully well-rounded, clever, and exceptionally kind characters, all in a lively, distinctive voice. With a compelling cliff-hanger ending, this engrossing adventure is sure to leave readers excitedly anticipating the next installment.--Selenia Paz Copyright 2019 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
junk, by Les Bohem, read by John Waters. (Audible.) Waters, a Hollywood veteran both in front of and behind the camera, narrates the Emmy-winning screenwriter's epic story of an alien takeover of Planet Earth, set in present-day Los Angeles. TOO much is not enough, by Andrew Rannells, read by the author. (Penguin Random House Audio.) The star of "The Book of Mormon" and "Girls" on HBO recounts his coming-of-age from a sexually confused Midwestern teenager to finding his footing as an actor in Manhattan. QUEENiE, by Candice Carty-Williams, read by Shvorne Marks. (Simon & Schuster Audio.) The "Endeavour" actor gives voice to a 20something Jamaican-British journalist navigating the trials of interracial dating, in a tale so full of humor she's been called a "black Bridget Jones." sal & gabi break the universe, by Carlos Hernandez, read by Anthony Rey Perez. (Listening Library.) This mystical middle-grade novel set at a magnet school in Miami lends a Cuban-American lilt to the genre of science fiction. remembering Roth, by James Atlas, read by the author. (Audible.) The biographer narrates an intimate homage to the late novelist, with whom he shared a decades-long, but not uncomplicated, literary friendship.
