Marissa Moss: Well, hello, my name is Marissa Moss, and I'm the author/illustrator of Talia's Codebook for Mathletes.

Talia is based on me when I was a kid, just like in Amelia's Notebook. Amelia's based on me if you know those books. But like Talia, I was a middle school mathlete and I was the only girl on the team. And in real life I couldn't take it. I was just too isolated and I quit. And as a grownup, I have to say, I was angry at myself for quitting. I felt like I should have stuck it out. I should have had the courage and the tenacity to do it, but I didn't. So I wrote Talia's Codebook to make the ending that I wanted to have happen in real life. So I have Talia have more grit than I had in real life. This is why I write books a lot, is to repair things that I wish had happened differently.

And the other thing that happened in middle school, which happens to Talia, is her best friend since she was very little, is a boy named Dash and once they hit middle school, suddenly the social rules have changed, and he doesn't want to be her friend anymore, at least not in public, because the other boys are teasing him that, "Oh, Talia is your girlfriend," and "Ooh, ooh, ooh." And he can't take that kind of thing because there are all these other social rules, a whole other kind of social code that Talia's trying to figure out.

So, I want to read one page from how this book is done, because it's done like a graphic novel with words and pictures going back and forth because that's how my brain works. Sometimes I think in words, sometimes I think in pictures, and I want to have that seamless transition. And the book is made in a observational way because that's how Talia thinks. So the book is divided into observations as she tries to figure out the codes of middle school. And observation number three is that Dash was desperate. So Dash is her old best friend.

" All week, I couldn't stop thinking about what Dash had said and how he had looked, the Dash spectrum." And then here's where I have pictures of Dash's face, where there's the happy Dash, the sad Dash, the normal Dash, the mad Dash, and the desperate Dash. So you can see how—well you can't see, but you'll have to imagine because you don't have the book in front of you—how I can use the art to express what's the emotional content of the book. And then also I have dialogue bubbles. So she and Dash are talking back and forth and Talia's talking to the other mathletes.

And then a lot of the book is using codes. And by that, I don't mean computer codes. I mean the fun kind of coding, which is secret codes like spies used, and then all the social codes that are unwritten codes that we all have to follow or think we have to follow and don't always know how to read. And I think they're especially tricky in middle school because the codes totally change. And so Talia's writing— another observation is what it takes to be a friend in elementary school is you just have to share lunch with somebody or tell a joke or listen to them. But in middle school, you have to wear the right clothes. You have to know how to take a posture or something. You have to get likes on social media. So it's a whole other ballgame that she's really struggling to figure out. And her observations, partly her life, and partly the things that you face when you're dealing with a new school and a new social situation and trying to figure out how this can work for you.

And Talia being a nerd, because I was very much a nerd, uses her notebook, her journal, her codes, her observations to figure it all out. And I think that's a good way to figure it out. Instead of wallowing and feeling bad about yourself, you try to figure out the world by looking at it and dissecting it and saying, "How can I make this work for me?" And she does make it work. She figures out a way to be a mathlete, to not be isolated, and to proudly be a nerd. All the things I wish I could have done when I was in middle school.