I am somewhat hesitant to review this book because I feel like I read it from a very adult perspective and therefore will not accurately be able to say whether a middle-grader (who are the intended audience) will enjoy it. The novel is a first in what seems to be a series and we start off with very interesting family dynamics. Mira’s mother is missing – they thought she had been kidnapped/killed/etc because she did not leave any letter or forwarding address or anything that would let the family know that she was okay. Out of the blue, Mira’s family gets a postcard from her from Paris in which she feeds them, what seems to Mira, a whole bunch of lame excuses that she chooses not to believe. Her father however refuses to consider that she simply left them and is convinced that something nefarious is involved. So he, because of a very convenient grant that allows him to take pictures all over the world, packs them up and gets them to Paris.I initially was intrigued by this because we usually have disappearing parents but never any stories where the child along with her family actively pursues the missing parent. Things become convoluted when Mira discovers that she has time traveling powers. The sketches in the novel liven it up but I am afraid I had rather many problems with the execution of what seems like a fantastic premise. For one thing, Mira’s age is never apparent in the way she behaves. Her preoccupation with getting a kiss from Claude is at odds with the middle-grade age I keep thinking her to be. The romance is rushed and unnecessary. I was also unable to believe the ease with which Mira navigates historical Paris. She meets all these famous figures and they conveniently happen to have the time and willingness to see her? And she sees them at intervals so they have grown older while she remains the same age – why would they not question the disparity? Why does her mother run away every time she sees her – yes, there’s a justification given but it’s too transparent and doesn’t hold up to proper question – why would a mother not be concerned that her very young daughter is running wild in a strange place that she knows no one? Why does she change clothes automatically every time she time travels? How does that happen? How did she learn to time travel? Is it genetic? If so, does her brother have the same abilities and if not, why not?There are too many questions that remained unanswered by the end of the book. I appreciated that Moss took a heavy subject – anti-Semitism – as a theme for her book but I found the execution a bit lacking. If I had these many questions, children will have many more.
