Allegra: What's in a Name?

What’s the perfect name for someone who is friendly, cheerful, brisk and lively, all rolled into one? Why Allegra, of course!

True to her name, 11-year-old Allegra smiles through her busy days. When she’s not working on the next belt in karate, learning Irish step-dancing or relaxing in her tree house, Allegra shares her good cheer with the library staff. Her mental list of cool new fantasy fiction is always at the ready. “The library is one of my favorite places. I’ve known Lolly forever, literally,” she says, a dimple emerging in her cheek. Although she misses the sweet smell of old books and the cozy, small-town feel of the Fulbright library building, “all the new books” at Blair Library are a worthy trade-off.

Like a superhero, Allegra has a knack for transforming herself into characters from her favorite books. A Hermione with Allegra’s curly hair rocked out at November’s Harry and the Potters concert, only to shapeshift into Narnia’s Lucy a month later for the Narnia movie release celebration. Her delight in discovery is infectious, as proven by the gleeful outbursts her own wild poems and stories elicit in FPL’s youth writing workshops. In particular, Allegra loves “animal books, fantasy fiction and weird facts, like in the Ripley’s Believe It or Not books.” Favorite authors? “J.K. Rowling, of course, and Rachel Roberts, who wrote the Avalon books," which Allegra loves, she tells us with a glint in her eye, for their portrayals of self-empowered, uncompromising females.

But as much as she loves strong women, Allegra turns to mush before the animal kingdom. Her five pets—three cats, including Moonie Bean, a one-eyed Russian blue who came with her house; a dog and a hamster—complete her household, along with her human parents. Eventually, she hopes to travel to Argentina to see her favorite cat, the ocelot, in the wild. A math and science whiz, Allegra plans to work with animals someday and talks excitedly about her future scientific studies: “Not chemicals yet, soon animals...I love all the interesting experiments you can do.” Once, she and her dad connected a bunch of household items, from rubber bands to safety pins, to turn on a light bulb. “We tried to use water, but it didn’t work like it was supposed to.” She says the conductivity experiment “was still fun, even though it didn’t totally work.” That’s our Allegra: sunny side up.