# Hello, Universe

**Author:** Erin Entrada Kelly
**Lexile:** 690L
**Grade range:** Grades 3–7
**Age range:** 8–12
**First published:** 2017
**Page count:** 320
**Genre:** Middle Grade Fiction
**ISBN-13:** `9780062414151`
**ISBN-10:** `0062414151`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/hello-universe
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Four sixth-graders in a Pacific Northwest town intersect over a single afternoon when Virgil Salinas, a shy Filipino-American boy, falls down a well. Kelly's 2018 Newbery Medal winner is widely assigned in 4-6 grade for its rotating four-narrator structure and lens on neurodivergence, friendship, and Filipino-American family.

## Themes

- Filipino-American identity
- friendship
- neurodivergence (deafness, anxiety)
- bullying
- rotating narrators

## Content notes

- bullying
- mild peril (boy in a well)

Common Sense Media age recommendation: 9+

## Where this book is assigned

### Common Core State Standards (ELA)

- **recommended** · 4th grade — [source: CCSS ELA grades 4-5 Newbery Medal 2018](https://achievethecore.org/page/2699)
- **recommended** · 5th grade — [source: CCSS ELA grades 4-5 contemporary Newbery winner](https://achievethecore.org/page/2699)
- **recommended** · 6th grade — [source: CCSS ELA grades 6-8 contemporary diverse exemplar](https://achievethecore.org/page/2699)

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