By Annie Dreyer

People used to ask Allie Costa if there were any books she hadn’t read.
“Yeah, that one over there in Russian,” she would respond grudgingly.

This is not good enough for Costa. Ever since she was two years old and started reading, she has always dreamed of having a bookstore in which she has read every book.

Costa’s dream is slowly coming true. After semester break, she opened up a library in the upper school bookstore for students, parents, teachers, whoever. The only requirement for the books is for Costa to have read all of them. She keeps the books she hasn’t read in a pile underneath the bookshelf, and will put them in the library once she reads them. Costa has worked in the literary world since she was in middle school; however, she never had as personal a relationship with the customers as she hoped for.

“Now, it’s personal,” she said.

A self-proclaimed “geek,” Costa would do her sister’s college homework for fun when she was in elementary school.

She was ranked number one in her high school, but wasn’t financially able to take the AP tests or get an IB diploma, so she couldn’t be her class valedictorian.

After finishing high school, Costa got a job working at B. Dalton, a bookstore in her Northern California hometown of Tracy.

When she moved to Southern California almost four years ago to pursue her acting aspirations, Costa transferred to Barnes and Noble and worked there until she came to the upper school bookstore.

“I’m lucky and happy to have her,” Irma Hernandez, assistant director of the bookstore, said. “She is uplifting and great with students.”

Though quite mentally mature, Costa physically looks quite young.

Just a year ago, after she finished auditioning for a musical review, instead of hearing the usual “Thank you, we’ll get back to you soon” or the dreaded, “Thanks for your time, but I think we’re looking for something different right now,”

Costa was met with a less conventional response: “Oh, that was great honey, but we don’t accept minors.”

Costa usually auditions for parts of a 12 year old and says she is lucky to pass for 16.
Her most recent credit was “Kitty Claws,” a musical at the Stella Adler Theater, in which she played a cat. Though Costa obviously enjoyed the performing aspect of “Kitty Claws,” it didn’t hurt that she was playing a cat.

After all, under the heroes section of her Myspace, she lists: “My cats: Twinkie, Hollywood and Spooky.”

Hollywood is Costa’s current roommate, and Twinkie was the subject of the first song she ever wrote, when she was 3 years old.

Costa also wants to pursue her writing and says “I’m just looking for a good story to tell.”