What it had to solve
Welcome Home, Stranger follows second cousins raised in North Korea and North Jersey through a year living together in Leonia, NJ.
The idea
A cover where the two cousins' shared year is one layered landscape — every small detail a cultural artifact you can keep finding.
How it works
FSG's team picked Mozza from two shortlisted South Korean artists; he sent four black-and-white drafts, then around ten color stories before landing on lavender, jet black, cloud and umber.
What it did
Cover revealed on Debutiful on 5 October 2026, ahead of publication on 25 May 2027; the author says seeing it convinced her she had written a YA novel.
Background
Yoojin Grace Wuertz's Welcome Home, Stranger is a YA novel about Yeji, raised in North Korea, and Ellie, raised in North Jersey — second cousins who must share a year in Leonia, NJ. Debutiful revealed the finished cover on 5 October 2026: art by South Korean artist Mozza with art direction by Aurora Parlagreco, ahead of publication by Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers on 25 May 2027.
The process stayed close to the author. FSG's editor Mekisha Telfer and art director Parlagreco shortlisted two artists — both South Korean, which Wuertz read as the themes being understood; Mozza won on his layered compositions that pack meaning into every detail while staying distinctly contemporary and YA. He began with four very different black-and-white drafts to settle the composition, then about ten color stories before the team chose lavender, jet black, cloud and umber — a palette picked to underscore the friction in the girls' relationship.
The finished cover puts the girls front and center in a layered visual landscape that mirrors the world they are trying to decipher, playing with scale and cultural artifacts so a reader can linger in the details. Wuertz contributed personalizing details representing each character, and says seeing the final art convinced her she had written a YA novel.
Why it lands
The art department matched artists to the book's heritage, not just its market shelf
Four starkly different black-and-white drafts settled composition before any color
The palette was chosen to carry the cousins' friction, not just to look pretty
The author's personal details for each character made the layers specific instead of generic
What you can take
Matching an artist to a story's culture beats matching them to its genre — shared context showed up as detail no brief could specify.
Since then
The book publishes 25 May 2027 from Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers; the cover reveal drew the author to reflect that the design 'convinced me that I had written a YA novel'.
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