You're Welcome, Universe by Whitney Gardner

Pages: 293

Intended Audience: Teens

Genre: Contemporary

Notes for Parents: Contains coarse language and mature scenes.

The Back Cover

When Julia finds a slur about her best friend scrawled across a wall at the Kingston School for the Deaf, she covers it up with a beautiful (albeit illegal) graffiti mural in an attempt to protect her friend’s reputation.

But then Julia’s (supposed) friend snitches, the principal expels her, and her moms send her to a “mainstream” school, where she’s treated like an outcast as the only deaf student.

Julia’s only outlet is her art. She paints anywhere she can. But Julia soon learns that she might not be the only vandal in town. Someone is adding to her tags, making them better showing off. Caught in a graffiti war, Julia must risk arrest to go toe to toe with her rival…or face losing the only piece of her identity that still makes sense.

What the cover doesn’t tell you:

This was the winner of the Schneider Family Book Award for Teens in 2018.

What’s good?

Julia is a deaf graffiti artist who gets kicked out of her specialized school after being accused of defacing property. In her new mainstream school, she has several issues and struggles to make friends. She just wants to focus on her art. The plot is simple but has lots of emotion and a good pace. The author shows blanks in the dialogue where Julia is unable to lip-read what others are saying, which serves to give the reader a great perspective of the communication challenges she faces. Themes include friendship, coping, and self-expression. Deaf culture and graffiti culture are nicely highlighted, and the story includes diverse characters without them feeling like tokens. The writing is strong, the use of imagery is well balanced, and the ending was satisfying.

Best Part: Illustrations of her graffiti and ASL signs.

What isn’t good?

If I had to pick a few things, I guess there was quite a bit of bad language, but then that did help illustrate Julia’s anger. She was angsty and moody a lot, but she’s a lonely, frustrated teenager so that’s kind of expected. It seemed a bit rude that she called her new friend YP (Yoga Pants), but that kind of associative name is part of deaf culture so…

Worst part: Nada.

Recommendation ☺☺☺☺ (4/5)

This was an engaging, feel-good tale with a touch of mystery and adventure. It was simple and easy-to-read, but still had a robust story line, strong characters, and an important message. Recommended.

Gardner, Whitney. You’re Welcome, Universe. New York: Ember, 2017.