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Marissa Moss graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in art history. She studied illustration at the California College of Arts and Crafts and with Caldecott winner Uri Shulevitz. She once taught art to elementary school children and children's book illustration through the extension program at the University of California at Berkeley.
Best known for the Amelia’s Notebook series, her books are popular with teachers and children alike. Amelia is often used to model journal writing while the historical journals in Moss’ Young American Voices series are used in social studies classes. “Rachel’s Journal, the Story of a Pioneer Girl” was featured on “Good Morning, America” and is included on the California state standardized test for fourth graders. Both Rachel and Hannah’s Journal are included in state textbooks.
Publishers Weekly gave “Amelia's Notebook” a starred review. The first of the series, it was an ABA Pick of the List for spring 1995 and received a 1996 Choices Award from The Association of Booksellers for Children. “Amelia Hits the Road” was also an ABA Pick of the List, for fall 1997. “Oh Boy, Amelia” was named a Children’s Choice by the Children’s Book Council in 2002 and won a Parent’s Guide Fiction Award in 2001. Several of the Amelia titles have been on the San Francisco Chronicle’s and Los Angeles Times’ Bestseller list. The books are sold in Target and Costco as well as a favorite in Barnes & Noble and independent bookstores. There are now more than two dozen titles in the series which has sold 5 million copies in five languages.
More recently, Moss has written middle-grade and YA novels, using the diary format in “Mira's Diary” and her interest in history in “A Soldier's Secret.”
Reviewed by Emily-Jane Hills Orford for Readers' Favorite
In Mira's Diary: Bombs Over London by Marissa Moss, Mira has a gift. Actually, her mother has the same gift. They are both time travelers. Mira hasn't seen her mother in a long time as her mother has been traveling through time, trying to fix events that will have harrowing effects on their family, some time in the future. The reader never finds out what the mother is trying to prevent from happening, but it has something to do with Mira and that's why Mira time travels. Well, actually she really time travels in the hopes of finding her mother and bringing her home. This time the trip takes Mira to 1917 London, England, and the world of espionage and suffragettes in a country tired of being at war. Mira meets some interesting historical people: suffragettes (she actually gets herself arrested as a suffragette), writers - she actually meets Beatrix Potter and Arthur Conan Doyle (who uses his sleuthing genius to assist Mira, much like the character in his novels, Sherlock Holmes, would have done). She even meets H.G. Wells, the author of The Time Machine, and wants to believe that he is a time traveler as well, but he's not.
This is a fast paced story, told in the format of a diary/journal, complete with sketches/drawings, which are presumably done by the main character, Mira. She is a young girl with a gift, not just in time travel, but also in storytelling and drawing. Marissa Moss has written an exciting story that teaches readers something about history. She's done her research well. This book should stand on its own, even though it's part of a series. The act of time traveling is not made particularly clear initially, which causes some confusion if the reader hasn't already read the first book. About halfway through the book, the reader comprehends the touchstone as being the key to the time travel experience. A good read and a good lesson in history.
