HOLLY NADLER
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We’re lucky to have 25-year-old Sondra Murphy as our new children’s librarian because she could have fallen back on becoming a hip-hop star. Not that she ever tried to be one, but she certainly looks the part, pretty, petite, with a short bob of blond hair ever-so-gently puffed into a stylish cowlick, and with a number of thin silver hoops running up and down each ear lobe.
Sondra grew up in Boylston just outside of Worcester. A lover of books from an early age, she worked at Border’s and Barnes & Noble in her teens. “The layout of big box bookstores inspired me to design a popular series aisle here at the library. Up until recently kids would ask where a bestselling book was stashed away.”
Tucked behind her desk at the library, she holds up just such an item, Diary of A Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney, his fifth in his Wimpy Kid series, loaded with cartoons and fun journal entries. Sondra explains that she has a brother who is five years younger and he keeps her plugged into whatever kids are up to, basically blogs, Nickelodeon and Facebook.
Sondra attended college at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in the Berkshires. Her initial passion was for journalism, but her savvy professors warned that newspaper and magazine jobs were dwindling fast. A few of her teachers pushed her towards grad school and got her focused on library studies. She went on to Simmons in Boston to pursue that field.
The young librarian’s interest in the Vineyard was slower to build: “Growing up, I was a Cape Cod girl. The Vineyard seemed too posh for me.” But then her dad took on the job of construction superintendent for the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. Her parents’ three-year touchdown here on the Island sparked Sondra to look for local work two summers ago. At Saltwater she served as the coffee and juice barista. She returned the following summer to put in a stupefying amount of hours both at Zephrus and, more fortuitously, the Oak Bluffs Public Library. She racked up 70 hours a week and paid in full for a semester at Simmons.
And now she’s here, installed in our fabulous children’s library with its canary yellow walls, books virtually hanging from the rafters, and the little kids’ corner room stuffed with tot-sized tables, chairs and one humongous rocking chair where Shaquille O’Neal could comfortably sit with Dr. Seuss spread out on his lap.
Sondra longs to attract more teens to the library. You could almost say it’s her ministry. “I wake up at night with ideas,” she says. She has books spread around her office as she investigates areas of adolescent interest: on zines, on video games, on slam poetry readings. This coming Saturday, Nov. 13, the library is hosting a National Gaming Day from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and the pixie-sized librarian will be right in there playing Wii with the best of them.
She also plans to acquire some “awesome music” and to stock up on graphic novels. You just know she’ll get the teens out in force if she has to hire lions and tigers and dancing girls and boys on flatbed trucks.
Meanwhile she lives just a minute-and-a-half walk away, with her boyfriend, who is studying to become an acupuncturist. “He’s much more into healthy living, so he’s a good influence on me.”
Since Sondra adores dark, dystopian teen literature, it’s a good thing someone hovers nearby to bring her a spinach smoothie to keep her spirits up. She also enjoys teen romance novels and cherishes the memory of bonding with her mom over the Twilight trilogy. “We sat in bed reading and eating cheese.” (Her mother is French, though it’s easy to picture just about any mom enjoying this cheese-daughter-vampire connection.)
“Teens still think the library is nerdy,” she tells me with a sigh. Well, if the new look in nerdy is Sondra Murphy, then nerd is undergoing a great new makeover.
In other breaking news, Featherstone Center for the Arts is hosting its Holiday Gift Show from Nov. 20 to Dec. 19 from noon to 4 p.m. daily. Artists’ gifts will be priced from $5 to $250. Oak Bluffs artists already signed up are Mary Blank, Judy Campbell, Enid McEvoy and Luncinda Sheldon. To be a part of it, call Patsy McCornack at 508 696-0603.
Another great annual fair is being scheduled by the United Methodist Church, the Holiday Fair And Café on Saturday, Nov. 13 (that’s tomorrow!) from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Trinity Parish House, across from the Tabernacle in O.B. On offer will be baked goods, jewelry, crafts and more. The luncheon will take place between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. and this will include clam chowder, roll, salad, pie and beverage. For more info, call 508 693-4424.
Now here’s a good plan: Are you wracked and torn by extra Halloween candy? Don’t want to eat it but don’t want to throw it away? Bundle it up and take it to the O.B. School office, where the staff will ship it to the troops. (I’m not going to comment on how they can hand it over to the enemy and speed up our departure schedule by at least four months.)
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