CURRENT POSITION Branch Administrator, Grinton I. Will Library, Yonkers Public Library, NY DEGREE MLIS, Queens College, CUNY, 2003 FAST FACT Somersall was raised in the Bronx but often returns to her Bajan roots in Barbados to visit family. FOLLOW ypl.org/about/library-staff Photo by William Neumann Photography

Born to Read

Tara Somersall’s creativity serving children of all ages has made Yonkers Public Library (YPL) a community leader in meeting kids’ needs and preparing them for a lifetime of reading.

Putting the “early” in early readership, Somersall worked with doctors and clinicians at Saint Joseph’s Medical Center to launch the Born to Read program, which focuses on parents reading, singing, and bonding with their baby. Her favorite part of that? “The ‘prescription to read’ that doctors provide to new families to promote the library and early literacy,” she says.

Somersall has collaborated with the Family Services Society of Yonkers (FSSY) on workshops for parents and caregivers, covering topics including mental health, nutrition, and financial literacy. FSSY’s intergenerational mentorship program, Summer Reading Buddies—which Somersall worked to expand—has volunteers read with and to elementary students, mentoring them for six weeks to develop relationships and track progress. In 2023, YPL hosted 110 mentors and 397 students who read 1,822 books.

She also partners with local childcare organizations to provide library cards and run the 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten program. “It seems so simple—bring story times to the daycare centers,” Somersall says, “but it really expanded our ability to serve more children and families.”

Somersall’s changes to the children’s department have been “transformational,” says YPL Deputy Director Shauna Porteus—not only helping redesign and open The Cove, a multipurpose indoor play and learning space for pre-K kids and their caregivers, as well as the county’s first Sensory Room, but also through her emphasis on hiring presenters and developing programs that are representative of the communities the library serves. “One mother told Tara that seeing someone that looks like her and her daughter meant the world to them,” says Porteus.