Sherri L. Smith (Pearl; Orleans) delivers a stellar work of middle-grade science fiction in Candace, the Universe, and Everything, about three generations of Black girls bound by a wormhole in their shared locker.
It's the first day of eighth grade, and 13-year-old Candace's locker just exploded. "Okay, not exploded. But basically exploded." As Candace opened the door "some... thing... burst out." Candace "threw her arms up and screamed. The thing screamed, too." It was a bird--a bird had flown out of her locker. Later, Candace finds a purple notebook labeled "What You Need to Know. For Girls Like Me" on the top shelf of the locker; "Tracey Auburn, Fall '88" is written in the front cover. Candace reads through the notebook and draws a picture of The Bird, signing the illustration, and placing it back on the top shelf. When Candace returns and finds that the drawing has been ripped out, she decides she will find Tracey Auburn.
Tracey, now a 53-year-old college professor, has memories of a bird flying into her locker in 1988, of losing her purple notebook, and of finding the illustration. She is understandably shocked when Candace presents her with the missing notebook 40 years later. Together, they test the locker: they write a note and leave it inside. Moments later, they open the notebook to find a new message: "Loretta Spencer... I'll be waiting." Loretta is a 93-year-old quantum physicist who has been studying the portal (and others like it) since a bird flew out of her locker in 1948. Now, Loretta needs Tracey and Candace to help her continue researching the "forty-year knot" of the locker wormhole--research that started in 1908 with Loretta's birdwatching (near-physicist) Grandmother.
Smith's novel is filled with cosmic metaphors, intergenerational connections, science, and self-discovery. She focuses the main narrative on Candace but includes chapters from both Tracey and Loretta's 13th year. Smith keeps a steady pace as she reveals the connections between the present and the past and she uses quotes from a beloved science fiction series in the world of the book to keep the reader speeding through chapters. With its contemporary When You Reach Me tone, Candace, the Universe, and Everything reminds readers that although the universe is boundless, our connections to each other are limited and thus extremely meaningful. --Natasha Harris, freelance reviewer
Shelf Talker: In this whimsical and wondrous sci-fi narrative, a Black girl and two Black women form an unlikely friendship based around the portal in their shared locker.