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Sep 25, 2019Tigard_LisaE rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Oh man, every creative child (so, every child) should get to go to a school like Sal's. Culeco Academy for the Arts is a dream of a middle school, where the drama teacher is a fan of every student and the textiles teacher sports a different costume every day. Sal immediately adores his new school after his family moves to Miami, but he keeps getting in trouble, at first because the school doesn't yet understand the needs of a diabetic kid, but then because he pulled a chicken carcass from an alternate universe into a bully's locker. Yes, somehow Sal has access to other worlds, an ability he discovered after his mother passed away and he kept accidentally/on-purpose pulling other versions of her into his own dimension. (Which is a problem for his father and step father.) When Sal's intrusions into other universes begin to cause complications, he teams-up with brilliant classmate Gabi in order to save the world, and hopefully her sickly infant brother. Most characters are Cuban American, with Spanish sprinkled throughout the dialog. Sal's T1 diabetes is something he is always thinking about and managing. Gabi has a large group of dads of various genders, including one robot. Sal is hilarious, kind, and tender. Once you suspend disbelief and accept a setting that is close enough to our world to be familiar, with a few scientific twists, this book will sweep you off your feet.