[Danielle Balocca]: Hi, Medford Bites listeners. On today's episode, you will hear from the Medford Public Library's Children's Librarian, Sam Sednik, community member and the owner of Book Wonder, Melanie Raylan, and a special guest. Important dates and other information mentioned by today's guests will be in the show notes for easy access. Hope you enjoy. All right, thank you so much for meeting with me today. Do you mind just introducing yourself, saying your name and your pronouns?
[Sednick]: Sure. My name is Sam Sednick, and my pronouns are she, her. And yeah, I'm the children's librarian at Medford Public Library.
[Danielle Balocca]: Awesome. Yeah, we're sitting here in the new recording space in the new library. I know, we snuck in. Yeah, I'm very grateful to be here. So the first question I've been asking folks is just what their favorite place to eat is in Medford and what they like to eat there.
[Sednick]: Well, I definitely think that everyone calls out Colleen's, because as a person with an extreme sweet tooth, having ice cream for breakfast, lunch, or dinner seems like a great life choice. And occasionally, I guess I have to eat cheese sandwiches, too. Colleen says that, but we've been out in West Medford in our temporary space and Simple Fare has been a really delightful place. I could eat their chips all day long. So clearly healthy options.
[Danielle Balocca]: Chips, cheese, and ice cream. Yeah. Can't go wrong. All of the food groups. Awesome. Well, thank you, Sam. You mentioned that you're the children's librarian. So I wanted to kind of hear about that, like kind of what led you to your role here in Medford.
[Sednick]: Yeah, so I graduated from Boston University a very long time ago, and didn't really know what to do with a bachelor's in English, because it doesn't really pin you into a job. So I signed up for the Peace Corps, and I ended up serving in the country of Lesotho in southern Africa. And while I was there, I was teaching English and science there, but I ended up doing a lot of community library development. And seeing how important access to information can be to a community that doesn't have a ton of it really kind of opened my eye to what a library can be. So when I came back, I got my master's in library and information science at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. And then I made my way back to Massachusetts, because I kind of fell in love with it when I was at BU. So I started as a children's librarian here in 2013, and I've just been kind of kicking around Medford ever since.
[Danielle Balocca]: Nice. Yeah, you mentioned kind of thinking about what a library could be. And I think some of us are familiar with the old library, and lots of us, I think, are excited for the new library. What's that process been like for you, sort of transitioning here?
[Sednick]: Yeah, so I've been very fortunate to be part of the building crew for this. We've been on a building team, so I've been in the design phase and in the planning phase and kind of in the back of it all along with Barbara Kerr, our director. Nicole Perreault, the teen services librarian. So it doesn't feel as startling to me because I've been like plodding along all the way through. But it's really delightful to see it coming, coming to the point where we're going to be opening doors here soon. And I really hope that the folks that have been just really waiting for it have all of their boxes ticked. But what I'm really excited about with this new library is that There are people that haven't used the library in a long time. The old library wasn't a space for them, or they never had a chance to drop in, and I hope that just the sheer curiosity of new building and Medford brings them in, because I think there's a little something for everyone here, and I hope to help people find that for themselves.
[Danielle Balocca]: yeah thank you yeah and it's uh i think it's been really cool to see all the ways that the library has adapted to the pandemic the i remember like doing making a reservation and we could finally go back into the library getting lots of requesting lots of books and being able to pick them up and seeing some of the like art kits that you all are preparing for um for for folks to like bring home and what's uh so again it sounds like a lot of that's going to be like in person now, where people will be able to come to the library. So do you want to talk at all about what people can expect when the library opens?
[Sednick]: Yeah, so we're hoping to open in early January, and we are going to go back to live programming in the space. We have a little bit more space here, like in temporary space we had no space, so it was a thing. For children's programming for a while, we'll probably be asking folks to wear masks if they're over the age of two, but we can see each other, we can do some story times and some projects, and we have a lot more programming spaces in the new library. So we would like to start doing programs where we're doing stop motion animation, or we have a green screen so we can play around with that. We have a maker space so we can build and do wild, creative things in there. And then, of course, we have our story time rooms. And so those story times will be coming back. And we are just really looking forward to seeing folks again. But yeah, we learned a lot during the pandemic about making things accessible, even if people can't come into the space. And our hope is to try and continue some of that. Like the take and make programs will probably stay for a while, where we'll occasionally do a craft where, you know, You can't come and spend an hour in our space and make something, but you can grab the supplies and do it at home sometime. So look forward to having some of that be part of our regular way that we do programming in the future. That's awesome.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, and I was lucky enough to get a tour from you before we sat down for this interview. And it's like, it looks like I mean, there's no furniture in here, but a huge space and the kids area looks awesome. And I'm excited for everybody to get to see it. Can you give us an idea of like the timeline of when things will open?
[Sednick]: Yeah, absolutely. So the really important thing is we are closing the temporary space on December 4th. That's the last day it's open. And I know there's like winter holidays coming up, so if you need to stock up on books for December, now is the time to do it. Get into the temporary space with your like wagon so that you can fill it up with books and take it out. We'd love to see everyone get all the things that they need for that month. But then we will close on December 4th, and hopefully we will be reopening on January 3rd. And we hope to see everyone. And we will, that week, be starting programming again. So we'll do a slow start with some of the story times that have been gone for a while, and then we'll roll into a lot of exciting programs. Yeah, is there anything else that you want to mention about the library? I mean it's super amazing and I can't wait to see everyone come in and check out our space. So whatever thing excites you in the world, whether it is you're really into building things or you know you have a band that you've been performing with and you want to cut your single or you want to try out a new way to code a program, we have equipment and spaces for you to play around and explore and create and learn and discover and it's all here at the Bedford Public Library and we can't wait to see everyone.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah it's really cool to hear you talk about that because I think people think about libraries and they think about like books right and it sounds like so much more that you guys are planning here and so much more that you've been doing for so long.
[Sednick]: Yeah. I mean, books are amazing because that's where you get your ideas. But then you've got to take those ideas outside of the books and do something amazing with it. And so we're trying to give you some space to take those crazy crafts from the books or the wild engineering project and give you a little space to get that to the next level and go on from there.
[Danielle Balocca]: Great. Well, I'm really excited for everything to open up. Thank you so much. Us too. Thanks so much to Sam for sharing your excitement and for all the work of you and your colleagues that helped bring this awesome new library. Before we get to our next interview, I have a special guest who's also excited about the new library. Could you tell us your name?
[XXXXXX00060_SPEAKER_15]: Cole.
[Danielle Balocca]: Nicole, how old are you?
[XXXXXX00060_SPEAKER_15]: Five and a half.
[Danielle Balocca]: And what are your pronouns?
[XXXXXX00060_SPEAKER_15]: He and him. He and him?
[Danielle Balocca]: He and him. Nicole, I was wondering, do you have a favorite book that you like to read?
[XXXXXX00060_SPEAKER_15]: I like Captain Underpants books. Yeah, and what do you like about Captain Underpants?
[Danielle Balocca]: I like the flapping pages. The flapping pages. They make action in the book, kind of brings the book to life. Yeah, that's right. And I was wondering, is there anything that you're excited for about the new library?
[XXXXXX00060_SPEAKER_15]: Um, the quiet space.
[Danielle Balocca]: The quiet space. Yeah, the quiet space with like the cool chair, you said. Yeah, Sam was able to show that to me. It was really cool. Well, thank you so much, Cole, for being on the podcast. Alright, well, please enjoy the next interview after a brief ad from Reimagim.
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[Danielle Balocca]: All right, so thank you so much for making time for me today. If you wouldn't mind just introducing yourself with your name and pronouns.
[Melanie Raelin]: Sure. My name is Melanie Raylin and my pronouns are she, her, they, them.
[Danielle Balocca]: Great. Thank you. Um, so I wanted to hear a little bit about kind of your professional work in Medford and some of the other stuff that you're kind of doing. It sounds like on maybe a more grassroots level. Um, so could you talk a little bit about those things?
[Melanie Raelin]: Sure, so I run a bookstore and it's a diverse representative bookstore called Book Wonder. It's in South Medford and we're housed inside the For Good Vibes gift shop. So Becca Pierce-Whelan and Emily Pierce are a big reason why I was able to start Book Wonder because they keep the lights on and they keep us staffed and they helped me get started back last fall of 2019. So, which, I kind of forget the year because of COVID, but yeah, so it's been, we just celebrated our two-year anniversary, which is pretty exciting for Book Wonder. But anyway, so Book Wonder, we feature books and graphic novels that center on black and brown lives, AAPI, people of color, gender diverse and individuals, women and girls. the LGBTQ plus community, as well as neurodiverse individuals and people with disabilities. It's a mouthful, but very important that we are reading those stories, putting those in front of our kids and our teens are having access to that. And I also have those books for adults.
[Danielle Balocca]: Can you say a little bit about kind of what led you to start this company?
[Melanie Raelin]: Sure. So, um, uh, you'll have to excuse me as I figure this out. I'm not used to doing podcasts, but, uh, um, so I started book wonder. Um, I actually started it. I'm one of these people who I get ideas and I think about it for a long time. And I was spending a lot of time as a new mom in, um, some of my favorite comic book shops. And, um, I started to realize that when I was introduced to graphic novels, I was introduced to the Sandman series by Neil Gaiman. It's fun, it's dark, I do like fun and dark, but it was very, it was very, it was too much for that period of my life. I wanted to read about interesting perspectives, I didn't necessarily want to read from the male perspective, and I wanted to see just different stories that would kind of get me out of my own brain in the new parenthood world. And I've always loved Marvel and comic books and to some extent I was always interested in them but I never thought they were for me. And then I started going to these comic stores and I started to realize there were a kids section and the first one that really stood out for me was one called Nimona by Noelle Stevenson who Noelle I believe is now they them and is exploring their gender and what I loved about Nimona was it was this amazing character That I think actually if we look at pneumonia now pneumonia probably is gender expansive or non-binary. I think in that book they are Female but I think it was interesting that they kind of were standing outside of the gender norm and they were countering the whole like good people versus bad people and they were like poking fun at like how these stories are kind of created quite frankly in a binary way without any gray areas and it just poked at all of that and threw it to the wind and Nimona was this amazing shape-shifting character that I just fell in love with and wanted to be and then I just started to get hungry for more and I started to see more like they were coming out slowly but they were coming out and Around the time where I started to realize that Marvel was doing something amazing, not in the cinematic universe, but in their comics, they were creating these comics geared for teens and young readers. And actually, thanks to Sam and Nicole at the library, I was pointed in the direction of the world of, for example, Latina queer superhero America Chavez and Squirrel Girl, a female superhero who eats nuts and kicks butts, and Miss Marvel, a Pakistani-American hero who's Muslim and had the choice to become a blonde, blue-eyed, superhero like Carol Danvers her predecessor and decide no I'm gonna be myself and make that into a superhero and it was so inspiring and I just I felt like my fellow community and parents didn't really know these existed I would talk about them and and people would just be like what are you talking about like a hero is Captain America here is Iron Man and maybe if we saw a woman here I was Black Widow I was like but wait and then I started to read even more about Captain Marvel Carol Danvers and realized like that she actually she both has a history of being in heterosexual and in a queer relationship and I was like why aren't why aren't we seeing that in the media and so I got really fascinated by that and then um I realized that there was this real I guess I should I should pause because I was thinking about it a lot in terms of the lgbtq plus community and then I was also thinking about stories featuring non-white characters particularly where we're talking about anti-racist education and reading these books specifically on that it's like well part of that is to read like Jerry Craft's New Kid and Class Act series, which are focusing on black and brown characters and the microaggressions they feel at school. And like, why isn't that a required reading for all of our kids? And being inspired by local community members like Dr. Divyanand, who you had on your podcast, who has taught me so much and has opened my mind so much about the whole idea of like, who is this book, not just like Who is this book featuring? But who is it written for? Who is it benefiting? And I just, I realized we needed to make that stuff, all these books more accessible. And when you go to a comic book store, your bill is usually very high. And I mean, yay for comic book stores and keeping the illustrators paid and keeping those bookstores open. But also there had to be a way to get these books in our school libraries, in our classrooms. Honestly, for a lot of the focus for me, it was in the hands of children during COVID when our big library was closed for renovations and there was a brief period where they were closed entirely. And our school libraries weren't accessible. And obviously our classrooms weren't because our kids were home. And so it became this very like, how do I create a space where these books are both accessible, affordable, and potentially also free? And so that's a very long-winded way to say that I felt like there wasn't a space for me or for my parent friends or for women, gender fluid folks. In this like general comic book environment, it felt very male centered and male focused. And even when they didn't, when they tried to reach out to perhaps women, it would be like, well, we have an event for women, but you can't bring your sons because it's for women. It was just like, well, that's not very doable for a parent. So. And I don't wanna talk badly about any of the wonderful places that I've been because I do love to support stores and keep local businesses open. So I think it was just like, how can I add to what the offer is?
[Danielle Balocca]: Sure, it sounds like you had this experience of going into comic book stores, places that you loved and not seeing yourself reflected in some of the books there, right? And having had that experience sort of using that to create this business and then be expansive of gender, but also inclusive of race. ethnic diversity as well.
[Melanie Raelin]: Yeah and even beyond myself I mean it was even the way interactions with staff would go it was just very like dismissive or that's the kids section or it's over there and it wasn't a priority in those establishments and I say that now having encountered amazing, amazing stores like All She Wrote Books and Assembly, which is a feminist and queer bookstore, and Omar's in Lexington, which has taught me so much about zines and queer graphic novels and is run by an individual with Down syndrome. And so it's just a beautiful, wonderful establishment. So there are definitely places like that that are now becoming They are now rising up and becoming more prevalent, which is so wonderful. But I wanted to be able to kind of cut a slice of that into the used model, where my books would be priced lower. I could buy books from local library sales and local shops. One of my favorites being Book Rack in Arlington, which they're just such wonderful people over there. And support local while also kind of like this double mission of like, let's keep local businesses alive. Let's get these very important stories easy to find and in front of people. And then what later developed into, oh, let's create a little free diverse library. And I'm going to pause because that is an idea that's not original to me. It's Sarah Kramer who started the little free diverse library. initiative, which is now known as Diverse Stories. And Sarah was an Arlington resident, I believe she's now in New York City. And she, I had reached out to her when she started a whole movement to diversify the kind of books we were seeing in our little free libraries. And so she, it was particularly after George Floyd, she was like, look, I'm not going to just sit here, I'm going to, I'm going to push this and anyone who wants to start a diverse library, reach out to me, I'm going to help you. And she was able to raise money, she gave us all Anyone who reached out to her, a seed, kind of a bag of several diverse books. And off we went. And she, I will credit her for helping me start the Little Free Diverse Library outside of the Book Wonder store in South Medford, which I think the location is very important, being in South Medford, in a place where our local school just changed its name to the Missittuck School from Columbus. And race is a very, very charged topic. as well as LGBTQ plus issues where we've had a local trans family who was the victim of homophobic graffiti a couple, several times in fact. So it feels very, very important to have these stories right there in the Mulva community for the kids, teens, adults, people taking the bus, anyone can get a hold of.
[Danielle Balocca]: I have so many questions I could ask you. You're making me think about a couple of things. One thing that Dr. Anand had said about being critical, thinking critically about these books and thinking critically about who they're for and making that available to people. And I also talked to Sam at the library earlier today, and she was talking about how books are important, because I was struck by all the different things the library offers besides books, right? And she was saying, books are really important, but you need to take what you learn from those books and put it into practice, create something. And so I'm wondering about what your hope is and what that will mean for these little diverse libraries. So how do you hope the city of Medford will sort of use these offerings? Or how do you hope that it will create change? do you hope it'll create change within the city?
[Melanie Raelin]: Thanks for asking that and I think I just want to give credit where credit is due that I'm not the first to you know as you mentioned Sam Sednick is an amazing treasure in our community as well as Nicole Perreault the teen librarian at the library really everybody at the library but those two individuals in particular have shown me from the beginning how we can provide these representative stories and put them in front of our kids And I've seen Sam's work firsthand, providing these kind of programming at the schools, and have been an admiration. And I think my hope, and then there's friends like, I'm sure my friend's gonna kill me for saying her name out loud, but my friend Ingrid, I'll just leave it at that, is so inspiring. And she has started a very important diverse book initiative at the Missittook School Library, where we have books of many different languages. The Missittook has many different languages spoken there, including, Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, an Arabic dialect. I feel like I'm missing a very important one. Oh, Haitian Creole and Ingrid had worked with library staff to kind of expand that selection as well as just adding diverse books into the library along with my friend Christina and and myself and Michelle and Claire and there I could go on but there's a big parent network that wants to support this diverse initiative and as well as queer books because and we've we've met a little resistance along the way with some queer books and it's just getting those in the hands of kids who are as young as kindergartners And part of the difficulty is the industry and like you and I have spoken off podcasts, it's hard because the industry is still catching up in many ways. I mean it's still really hard to find a middle grade book with queer protagonists, transgender, non-binary. It's like we need those stories written. we're starting to see more and more of these like owl diary type books featuring black and brown characters, Asian characters, Indian characters. And talking to Melanie McLaughlin, our school committee member, you know, she had funded an initiative to buy many books on neurodiversity and people with disabilities and I found how difficult it was even to find those kind of books, like you have a smattering, maybe a few in YA, some in middle grade, and picture books, those kind of books read off like a grocery list right now, and we need some really much deeper journeys into those worlds. I guess I'm rambling, but I think my point here is that it's very important that these books are available both at the school library, but also within the classrooms themselves. I see with my kid who's in third grade, you know, they pick a book out of the classroom library every day. And something that's worth noting is that the teachers are funding those. I mean, I'm just gonna say our poor teachers, they're expected to do so much, including create an entire classroom library. And so what I've done kind of in a griot type way, I guess is the way to say it, is work with teachers on an individual level to say, can I provide these books to you? Let me help you. And I take the proceeds, a portion of the proceeds from Book Wonder to fund both my little free diverse library, to add these diverse books to libraries throughout the city, particularly at schools, and to put these books within school libraries and the school classroom. So that is the hope, is to eventually have, whether it's somebody who steps up, I mean, wouldn't it be amazing to have Dr. Anand in that role, or somebody with those kind of credentials to be a diversity and inclusion, I guess librarian is the right term, or book expert or inclusion expert who is literally working with teachers, making these books available, And not just giving the books, but as my friend Ingrid always reminds me, also providing curriculum and real training to how to do that. But at the same time I'm saying that, I still am reflecting upon what Dr. Anand said about is the point of this to educate our white teachers to teach our diverse kids or to provide these resources so diverse kids see their experience and I think the purpose is hopefully both the window and mirror experience you know to see into other cultures to open your perspective to widen your view But I do I also see and I'm not blind to the fact that as a white person doing this that I have a lot to learn and a lot to listen to and I feel like I'm constantly in the state of Please you know and I hope people listening feel like they can call me up and talk to me and say you know what actually I prefer you say it this way or think about it that way I mean, I feel like I always need to be open-minded about how I'm approaching that and not just to come in and do the hey here I am white volunteer gonna save the day because that's not my intention at all I want to support what has been done work like dr. Nand has done in the Medford school system and work that the teachers are doing and the training they've done and training like Sam and Nicole have that I don't have you know that how can I support those efforts I think the big thing I've always thought about with anything I do in Medford is how do I help a process, understanding that there's probably been steps taken before me, and it's not about tromping over those steps and doing it my way, but how can I support what exists? And sometimes that means ripping it all down and trying again, but is there a way to support some efforts that have been done in the past? And so it's never so easy as, oh, I just want to give books to a teacher. It's, okay, how can we really structurally address this? So I guess my dream is I'll have a beautiful, wonderful bookstore of my own and somehow we'll be able to address the structural issues of why most of the books in classrooms and in libraries still focus on white, cis, heterosexual characters and how can we expand that to really reflect our student population and our world at large. Sure.
[Danielle Balocca]: And can you tell us where to find the diverse library?
[Melanie Raelin]: Sure. So the diverse library, first of all, my store is Book Wonder at Four Good Vibes in South Medford. It's at 392 Main Street. I'm not very good with websites, but I'm on Facebook and Instagram at Bee Book Wonder. So that's B-E Book Wonder. with the idea being that we're all book wonder, and it's kind of a restyle of boy wonder. It's like, nope, we're all the superhero here. We can all step in and put on that cape, and we don't even need a cape. We can just be superheroes in our own way. And the Little Freed Library is located in front of our store. It's bright teal, and hopefully we'll get an arts grant, and then it will have some really cool art on it that reflects Black Lives Matter sentiments and trans lives. positivity and LGBTQ plus positivity and all that good stuff.
[Danielle Balocca]: So I was like really excited to get going on this topic that I forgot to ask you the question in the beginning about food. So if we could go back to that. So everything I've been asking all of my guests about their favorite spot to eat in Medford, what they like to eat there.
[Melanie Raelin]: Okay. I love this question. And I've every time I listened to your episodes, I'm like, what would I say? So I'm going to, um, I have to say, especially during the pandemic where we ordered out a lot, and let's be honest, we don't really like to cook in our house, so we order out a lot. But one of my absolute favorite places is Real Gusto in Medford, and part of it is just Mateo and Francesca have always been supportive of our community work, whether we do cleanups or just bringing the community together. particularly when I was part of the Medford Community Coalition. They were always so supportive. But also their food is just so delicious. And I have a garlic allergy, which is really tough. And they cook things in the Tuscan style. So they don't use garlic in their sauce. They use celery roots. So I can eat all their sauces.
[Unidentified]: Wow.
[Melanie Raelin]: And so I dream about their ravioli and their carbonara.
[Danielle Balocca]: Oh, that sounds awesome. Well, thank you so much. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you'd like to add?
[Melanie Raelin]: I guess I just want to acknowledge, particularly the episode from this season with Simi and Divya, that I'm so in admiration of the work that they're doing. I hope that what Book Wonder is doing can benefit them or benefit their efforts. I have donated to Divya, and I believe her partner's name is Kate on that project, the housing community calendar. And I hope that I can do more to support what Dr. Nhan's doing in the community. And I also just really appreciate what Simi is doing with her Loving Little Minds company. And it looks like there may be a future partnership where we work together to try to get diverse books into the schools. So more diverse books, I should say. There are diverse books in the schools. enhancing the selection that is there.
[Danielle Balocca]: Great, well I really appreciate your time today and I was able to get Divya shared an advanced copy of the calendar with me and it's beautiful so I hope people are donating to the campaign and getting their own copy.
[Melanie Raelin]: Yes, everyone donate to Divya's campaign, it's amazing.
[Danielle Balocca]: Well Melanie, thank you so much.
[Melanie Raelin]: Thank you, awesome.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thank you to Melanie, Sam, and Cole. As Sam mentioned, the current temporary space for the library will close on Saturday, December 4th at 5 p.m., and the new library on High Street will open on Monday, January 3rd. On Saturday, January 15th, there will be a public open house and ribbon-cutting ceremony at 10 a.m. As always, if you have feedback about this episode or ideas for future episodes, you can email medfordpod at gmail dot com. You can also subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much for listening. Guys, what's the name of the podcast? Medford Bites!