Barbed Wire Baseball

Marissa Moss has written more than seventy children’s books, from picture books to middle-grade and young adult historical novels. She’s best known for the Amelia’s Notebook series, which has sold 6 million copies, been translated into several languages, and started the notebook format craze in children’s books. Without Amelia, there would be no Diary of a Wimpy Kid and all the other illustrated notebook/graphic novel followers. Moss’ books are popular with teachers and children alike. Both Rachel’s Journal and Hannah’s Journal are included in state textbooks. She brings history to life in her picture book biographies and middle-grade novels featuring historical figures from Jackie Mitchell to Allan Pinkerton to Kate Warne. Her books have won many awards and been translated into several languages. Barbed Wire Baseball, a recent nonfiction picture book, won the California Book Award, the California Young Reader Medal and was named an ALA Notable Book. Last spring, her first adult/young adult graphic novel was published. Last Things, a Memoir of Love and Loss, uses her trademark mix of art and text in a graphic memoir about her husband’s death from ALS and her family’s reaction to the illness and loss. The book won the Cowan Writer’s Prize.

Yuko Shimizu is an illustrator and comics artist best known for the cover of the graphic-novel adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman: The Dream Hunters. She lives in New York City. yukoart.com.