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Keywords

deaf graffiti artist, identity and self-expression, outsider vs. mainstream culture

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Gr 9 Up—For Julia, the very complex protagonist of Whitney Gardner’s novel, You’re Welcome, Universe, nothing has ever been straightforward. When Julia finds a slur about her best friend scrawled across the back of the Kingston School for the Deaf, she covers it up with a beautiful graffiti mural. Her supposed best friend snitches, the principal expels her, and her two mothers set Julia up with a oneway ticket to a “mainstream” school in the suburbs, where she’s treated like an outcast as the only deaf student. The last thing she has left is her art. Out in the suburbs, Julia paints anywhere she can, zealous to claim some turf of her own. 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—and showing Julia up in the process. She expected her art might get painted over by cops, but she never imagined getting dragged into a full-blown graffiti war.

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