Because it was so hard to resist, I also bought Perfect (2024) by Waka T. Brown, illustrated by Rochester artist Yuko Jones. It is a pleasure to know Yuko and I’m so happy for her success in making this story come to life. In it, a young girl gets upset when her favorite mug breaks and has to learn to adjust. Beautifully shown.

In the catch-up category, I blitzed through The Personal Librarian (2021) by Marie Benedict and Victoria  Christopher Murray, each acclaimed authors who teamed up to write a fictionalized account of a real person, Belle Marion Greener. Belle lived in the early 1900s, passing for white and becoming the highly successful manager of J.P. Morgan’s rare manuscripts collection. A riveting story that kept me going to the end.

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