You're Welcome, Universe - Whitney Gardner

When your favorite after-school activity is tagging walls with graffiti, friends are a liability. Julia learns this the hard way when she covers up a slur about her best friend with a beautiful (albeit illegal) mural sprayed right across the back of the Kingston School for the Deaf. Her best friend snitches, the principal expels her, and her mothers set Julia up with a one-way ticket to a "mainstream" school in the suburbs. Out in the 'burbs, Julia paints anywhere she can, eager to claim some turf of her own. But Julia soon learns that she might not be the only vandal in town. Someone has been adding to her tags, making them better, showing off. She expected her art might get painted over by cops, but she never imagined getting involved in a graffiti war. Now, Julia must go toe-to-toe with her rival...or face losing the only piece of her identity that still makes sense. Told with wit and grit by debut author Whitney Gardner, who also provides gorgeous interior illustrations of Julia's grafitti tags, You're Welcome, Universe introduces audiences to a one-of-a-kind protagonist who is unabashedly herself no matter what life throws in her way.