 Hello San Francisco friends. My name is Tracy Todd. My pronouns are she, her, hers, and I am the author of Nina, a story of Nina Simone, illustrated by Christian Robinson, which of course you can tell because the illustrations are so gorgeous. I am the daughter of a public school librarian, and so I have known about the magic and appreciated the magic of library since I was a little girl. And since I was a little girl, I have listened to the music of Nina Simone. Her music was introduced to me by my father. So in many ways I have had her story in my head, have Nina Simone in my head almost my entire life. Nina Simone was a little girl who had an incredible gift, an incredible voice, and into adulthood she learned how to use it to stand up for what was right, to sing out against injustice and to celebrate being black. And that is why I wanted to tell this story because I think we need more celebrations of how wonderful and joyful it is to be black. I hope you love this book as much as I enjoyed creating it. Thank you so much.