Sal and Gabi Break The Universe, by Carlos Hernandez

It’s just a SMALL hole in the space-time continuum… 

For a fun adventure featuring parallel universes, diabetics and Cuban food, check out Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, by Carlos Hernandez. It’s a humorous and also heart-filled adventure of two kids trying to make things right for their friends, their family, and for the universe. 

Sal is a creative 13-year-old who just moved to Miami and started attending Culeco, a school for talented children with interests in arts and theater.  He has type-1 diabetes, but that doesn’t slow down his abilities as an amateur magician.  His father is a calamity physicist who is inventing machines to study parallel universes.  Which is convenient, because ever since Sal’s mother passed away a few years ago, he has had an unexplained ability to shift things between universes.  In fact, he has a bad habit of accidentally bringing her back by pulling variations of his mom from other universes, at least for brief periods of time. 

Gabi is an energetic girl who knows and befriends everyone, even Yasmany, the bully who picks on Sal on his first day at Culeco.  She’s trying to single-handedly fix every ill in the world, including Yasmany’s trouble with his abusive mother, and her own baby brother’s health problems.  Gabi can’t get over the magic trick Sal pulls on Yasmani. She pushes on him until she learns the truth of his power to affect other universes.  After that, they work together to investigate what is going on with Sal’s powers and how to clean up the supposedly-dangerous “calamitrons” he releases into the world when he uses them. 

This story contains great little glimpses of Cuban culture and style. Readers will gain a better understanding of and empathy for what it’s like to live with diabetes. The characters are interesting and wholesome – even Yasmany – and support each other a lot. And it’s fantastic to see examples of Cubans participating in advanced physics. The actual coverage of the theories of multi-dimensional physics is light or nonexistent; some entertaining situations pop up when our universe can interact with other universes, but there is not much educational value to the treatment of the physics. It would have been better to see some counter-examples to traditional gender roles; the book delights in mothers cooking and feeding everyone, laughs at fathers who are bad cooks, and could have featured another male teacher or nurse.  The book ends on a satisfying note and can be enjoyed without a lot of unresolved loose ends left for the sequel. 

This book is an all-around fun adventure, with a tone that is sometimes humorous, sometimes sweet. It’s great for readers in the 9-12 age range. 

Content warnings: abuse and infant mortality. 

Find this book on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FL82MKG/.  Find its sequel, Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe, at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1368023614/. 

For reviews of other children’s books featuring diversity in technology and engineering, see STEM Area: Technology and ​​​​​​​STEM Area: Engineering. 

For reviews of other children’s books featuring gender and racial diversity in STEM, see Diversity Type: Gender and Diversity Type: Race. 

Also see our full STEM listings of books and other resources that feature diversity in STEM.