By Maria Falgoust & Jon French

At International School of Brooklyn (ISB), we believe stories have the power to unite, inspire, and spark curiosity across ages and cultures.

This belief is reflected by our multilingual library collection, the heart of our school’s Learning Commons. It is expressed daily in our students’ ability to express themselves in French, English, and Spanish. ISB students understand the power of a story; we hear them tell their own, retell those of their friends and families, and question which ones are worth reading. Yet, we have also recognized that the gift of oral storytelling is a bit of a lost art. There is something galvanizing about a person as a story. Within a singular person is all that one needs for a story: sound, movement, language, narrative, and connection.

We wanted to share that enchantment with our students and larger community in the form of live oral storytelling events. We were able to do just that with the help of the Vision to Reality Grant.
This dream—or vision!—first materialized with a visit from award-winning storyteller, singer, and actress April Armstrong. Using funds from the Vision to Reality Grant, the ISB Library invited April for a day of musical folktales and workshops. In our Lower School morning assembly, April shared “The Sandpiper and the Whale,” a clever Marshall Islands story of a boastful whale and a resourceful sandpiper whose playful rivalry nearly drained the ocean until ingenuity and teamwork saved the day. Students also laughed along with “Crocodile and Hen,” a warm tale of kinship and connection, accompanied by the legendary musician Mario E. Sprouse, whose guitar and percussion brought each character to life.

Later in the day, April led second graders in storytelling workshops that combined improvisation games, performance tips, and audience engagement techniques. Then, she challenged second grade students to take a classic nursery rhyme (“Wee Willie Winkie”) and bring it to life with a breath of fiery storytelling. Some students were impassioned to recite their poem with tears and tissues while others were inspired by April’s advice to use their bodies and tell a story with both words and movement. Our second grade students left April’s workshop with a stronger set of acting chops and the understanding that a story is only as powerful as the voice—or voices!—with which they tell it. 

With ISB lower school students freshly enchanted by the magic of storytelling, our library team decided that it was time to spread that narrative charm with the greater school and Brooklyn community.

Enter: Brooklyn Beanstalk.

Brooklyn Beanstalk is an NYC-based, arts-driven educational organization that offers Spanish and French immersion and creative enrichment programs for children from 16 months through elementary school. Using the gift of Vision to Reality, along with funding from our PA, the library team commissioned Brooklyn Beanstalk to put on an all-ages show that would once again remind our community that stories can be more than words on a page. Stephanie Larriere, founder of Brooklyn Beanstalk, wasn’t short of ideas when approached about the project.

The performance, Stephanie told us, would be a cantastoria. This word was a new one to us librarians, but we were quickly brought up to speed. A cantastoria, it turns out, is an ageless traveling oral art form—street theater storytelling, sung and acted by live performers, and accompanied by a visual support of painted banners, scrolls, or placards to illustrate the story.
What story, though? And how? The answer started with even more questions.
What is Happiness? Felicidad? Le Bonheur? When do I find it? How do you reach it? Where is it? Can we measure it?

These were the questions at the root of what Stephanie and Brooklyn Beanstalk wanted to ask the ISB community through the performance. So, we surveyed students, faculty, and staff with questions about happiness and shared those responses to help Stephanie and her team prepare a script. Concurrently, our youngest students worked with their teachers to paint their responses on fabric banners, while second graders created drawings of their ideas and then embroidered them onto fabric with help from parents, faculty, and staff volunteers.

It was a true labor of love, as Stephanie and Brooklyn Beanstalk wove these contributions directly into their performance. The result was a story that highlighted how it is the little things in life, the creature comforts, and the people with whom we share them that make us smile, laugh, and even jump for joy. The truth behind this simple message of love and appreciation was underscored by the success of this low-fi, supremely collaborative, all-hands-on-deck, yet wholly thrilling spectacle!

With such a special performance in store for our community, we felt it only appropriate to open with an even more special guest. Turning our sights toward our school community, we invited an ISB alum Zack Pope (Class of 2023) to provide a prologue of sorts for “Stories We Share” with a moving and funny monologue from the musical You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown and a brilliant and profound rendition of the song “Unruly Heart” from the musical Prom. Zack’s performance reminded us once again that a story’s true power comes not only from its words, but from the heart and soul of the person who tells it.

As librarians, we recognized that stories don’t end with the final page, a last breath, or a curtain call. Naturally, after the performance, our colleague and fellow story advocate Paul Romano helped us digest the performance through a Q&A with Stephanie, Zack, and the Brooklyn Beanstalk players.  It was apparent that this audience of all ages had plenty to talk about: 

“What does the big blue puppet represent?” one kindergartener asked.

“Why are you wearing red and yellow?” wondered another student.

A fourth grader raised a question about the inclusion of a Venezuelan flag in the visuals.

Students laughed and cheered (and snacked) throughout the performance, but they also demonstrated thoughtful engagement, moving naturally from enjoyment of the story to focused, reflective inquiry.

Parents, too, seemed excited and sometimes bewildered by this truly unique experience. Rebekah Wallin, an ISB Parent and Library Committee Co-Chair, had this to say to her fellow library committee members:

“I don’t know about you, but I’m still thinking about the Pursuit of Happiness two days later… and not just because my five-year-old keeps reminding me that happiness is Legos. My favorite part was probably hearing the laughter and chatter from all of the surprised and delighted kids sitting upfront during the show. Both of my kids were thrilled to be a part of this one-of-a-kind experience. Something about the imaginative, tactile, musical, zany, DIY nature of the cantastoria has stuck with them, and I think they will carry it with them for a long time. I’m excited to see how this inspires our kids’ future creative endeavors.”

From April Armstrong’s playful folktales to Brooklyn Beanstalk’s cantastoria, our library continues to be a space where stories inspire curiosity, empathy, and joy—reminding us that no matter our age or the languages we speak, we are all connected through the stories we share.

Bios:

Maria Falgoust is the Head Librarian at International School of Brooklyn (ISB), an IB school with immersion programs in French and Spanish, where she works with students from pre-K through eighth grade. With over two decades of experience in independent schools, she is passionate about building community through books, fostering curiosity, and creating inclusive, joyful library spaces. Maria is especially interested in bringing unique programs, meaningful conversations, and a sense of humor into the library.

Jon French is a librarian at International School of Brooklyn (ISB), where he supports a student-centered, inquiry-driven library program grounded in the IB framework. He partners closely with teachers to integrate information literacy, research skills, and educational technology into classroom learning, while curating a diverse, academically and personally relevant collection that supports a strong culture of reading and curiosity.

Regardless of the reason for leaving one’s library – whether a new opportunity, retirement, or something else – there is obviously business to attend to before departure. Everyone’s circumstances are unique, and you may not have the luxury of time to attend to things as you wish. If you do, here are some things to consider before heading off into your next chapter, with thanks to Liz Gray, Sandy Gray, and Dave Wee for their insights!

Get your collection in order.

An inventory and/or weed may be overdue, so this is the time to get work done that you’ve been putting off. Perhaps this means dealing with a non-fiction print collection that is underused, with the goal of creating valuable extra space. Don’t forget about attending to your digital collection as well!

Have policies, procedures and lessons updated, documented and organized in one place. 

Use a shared drive (Google or school network, depending on school policy) to house all library documents, ensuring that nothing is left living solely on your own computer’s hard drive. 

Be specific, for example: ” When a box of new books arrives, here is a bulleted list of the 14 things that need to be done before the book gets placed on the new book display for students to check out” (Wee, 2024). 

Sandy remembers an AISL conference where recently retired Sara Kelley-Mudie presented on this topic, discussing “high-level considerations right down to explicitly labelling all keys”. She suggested not only leaving contact information for all vendors but also reaching out to them to introduce your successor (if known).

Leave a detailed budget with supportive documentation to support line items

Provide your successor with as much data as possible to support budgetary decisions & priorities. 

Address any personnel issues within your staff

Similar to getting your collection in order, do this to make your successor’s transition much easier.

During transition, focus on function and avoid the drama

Approach the transition with an objective mindset. In Liz’s words, “one woman’s nemesis might end up being another woman’s best friend, and the person who never collaborated with me might end up making beautiful music with my successor.” This is relevant for both internal & external hires.

Make sure your job description is up to date

This is particularly important if the people hiring are less familiar with your day-to-day work, especially regarding changes that have occurred since your hiring. You want the description to reflect what you currently do, with an eye to the future as well.  

And if your successor is a current colleague, include them in decision-making processes (such as database renewals, lesson planning, and acquisitions) wherever possible. Have them invited to meetings alongside you, and ensure they are included on relevant email distribution lists.

Exploring Book Genres through Makey Makey & Scratch
Fifth graders combined literacy and technology in a unique project.
Step 1: Read & Analyze
Each student pair read a Caldecott Award–winning book and explored its genre, discussing story elements, themes, and illustrations.

Step 2: Write & Script
After identifying the genre, students wrote short scripts that captured key aspects of their book—like a mini book trailer or dramatic reading.

Step 3: Code & Create
Using Scratch, they programmed their recordings and animations to tell their story.

Step 4: Tinker & Play
Finally, they connected their projects to a Makey Makey, turning physical objects (like book covers) into interactive controls to play their recordings!
Visitors can press a touch a sensor to hear students’ book summaries and learn about the genre and book—an engaging blend of reading, writing, coding, and hands-on tinkering!

Hello again! I am back with the promised Gingerbread Competition!
I took what I learned hosting the pumpkin carving and made some changes and we ended up with a 60 (!!!) gingerbread houses decorated this past week. Riding a sugar high over here.

This time, I advertised the program starting the Monday before. We shared a flyer in the student e-news, displayed it in the library, and ran it on the TVs around campus. I skipped advance sign-ups and instead made it clear that supplies were first come, first served, with a limit of ten houses per day. This took some logistical pressure off me.
I gathered all the supplies the week prior and built the first round of houses on Friday before the weekend. Gingerbread is a bit of a misnomer here, as the houses were built with graham crackers. I pre-built everything for two reasons: children are messy creatures, and graham cracker houses need time to set before decorating. I wanted students to spend their time creating, not waiting for walls to stop sliding apart!

Full disclosure, I have been building these houses for groups for years. I am pretty good at them. A middle schooler timed me this week, and I can assemble a house in 42 seconds! If you want a tutorial, I am always happy to share. My two biggest tips are to use Walmart brand graham crackers and the cheapest store-bought icing you can find. That icing dries like concrete.
We set the houses out on plates around a large table covered in plastic dollar store tablecloths. I offered icing in disposable piping bags in both white and green. Do not dye green icing yourself! You can buy tubs of it at the dollar store and save yourself the trouble.

For decorations, we had lots of options, but the most popular were Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, mini candy canes, mini M&Ms, pull-and-peel Twizzlers, pretzels, and of course the icing. All candy was kept in bowls on a table where I stationed myself, and students came up to select what they wanted rather than having free access at the decorating tables. This encouraged more intentional choices and allowed us to gently remind them not to eat the candy, given how many hands had been in those bowls.

They still ate the candy. I did what I could!
Monday was slow, and I once again had to remind myself that the beginning of a program is not a measure of its success. Students do not read emails, and word of mouth takes time. I recruited a few of my frequent library visitors to decorate that first day, and later that evening an entire basketball team came in for study hall and enthusiastically built houses they were genuinely proud of. After that, the floodgates opened. Students streamed in all week asking about the gingerbread houses!
This time, we posted the ribbon categories ahead of time, and several students decorated very intentionally with winning in mind. I recruited our Head of School to award a ribbon as well this time, and the kids thought that was particularly exciting. They checked back regularly to see when prizes would be awarded, and the students who earned ribbons were incredibly proud. As they should have been!

Watching this program unfold was such a joy, and I cannot thank the Vision to Reality Grant team enough for funding this kind of library fun. I will be back in February with another program and, if all goes according to plan, another full library!

Welcome to my first AISL blog post!
This is my second year as a K-5 independent school library media specialist and eleventh year as an elementary school educator. Thanks to the generous award of the AISL Vision to Reality Grant, I was funded and able to host an author visit for second through fifth grade students. We were thrilled to welcome Shamim Okolloh and her son, Liam Sprinkle, co-authors of the 2023 children’s book Ella the Banker. Both authors are Native Arkansans based in Little Rock, and they made the trip to visit our school in Fayetteville, AR.
Their book focuses on the importance of introducing financial literacy at an early age through the story of Ella, a second grader who takes a field trip to a bank and learns about its behind-the-scenes operations and the different types of banking. The message aligns beautifully with a beloved project at our school—the second grade Holiday Store.
Each year, our second graders visit a local bank, apply for (and receive!) a loan to purchase
materials for the crafts they create. They then sell their handmade items at school, and the
funds raised are used to buy gifts for families in need within our school and community.
Ella the Banker provided the perfect narrative connection to this real-world learning experience, and having the authors on campus made financial literacy and banking feel even more exciting, real, and accessible to our students.
Ella the Banker is available for purchase at Walmart, Target, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. Add a copy to your library, more than 5,000 copies have already been sold!

Welcome to the first post in my series about luring students into the library—with programming, not bribery. Though honestly, both can be effective.

This is my second year as Director of Library Services, and my focus for the year is building community. Last year was all about the logistics—reworking the collection, rearranging furniture, and figuring out which light switches controlled which parts of the library. This year, I’m leaning hard into the fun stuff: being everywhere, doing everything, and getting students to do all the library things.

Thanks to the AISL Vision to Reality Grant, I get to go big with that goal. My proposal centered around the idea that a little friendly competition can go a long way toward creating community—and filling the library. I’ve always believed libraries aren’t just quiet study spaces or shelves of decorative books. They’re safe, lively spaces where everyone should feel like they belong. And when programming makes the library approachable and fun, the books practically start walking off the shelves themselves.

Our school is a 6–12 boarding school, with about half our students local and half international. One thing they all share? A deep, abiding love of competition. Give them a ribbon, a pin, or even bragging rights, and they’re all in. And let’s be honest—sometimes the lower the stakes, the higher the bragging rights. So this fall, I kicked off our competitive programming with something delightfully old-school: a Pumpkin Carving Contest. Nostalgia meets rivalry—it’s the perfect recipe. In just three days, 35 students carved pumpkins. I call that a serious programming win.

How It All Came Together

Step one: confirm I was, in fact, allowed to give students sharp objects. (An underrated but essential step.)

Once I had the official thumbs-up, I started promoting the event about two weeks out. It’s hard to identify a sweet spot for programming —too early and they forget, too late and they’ve filled their schedule with other Very Important Teenage Things. But two weeks seemed to work out for this.

Promotion went out in the weekly student e-news, on the TVs around campus, by the library sign-in station, and via a community-wide email. Students signed up through a simple SignUpGenius—five slots per class block for upper schoolers, and a separate lunch option for middle schoolers. About two-thirds of our carvers signed up in advance, which, for a first run, felt like victory.

Then came the pumpkin hunt. I checked local farms and big box stores, but Walmart’s $3.97 pumpkins beat everyone else’s $10 price tags. Supporting local business is wonderful—but so is staying within budget. I enlisted my oldest child and my husband to help me and we relieved a few local Walmarts of their pumpkins purchasing 40 pumpkins overall and drawing a lot of attention from other shoppers.

Our activities department already had carving tools, so all I needed were blue ribbons for prizes and battery-powered tea lights from the dollar store—three for $1.25. Librarian math loves a bargain.

Our campus is spread across multiple buildings, with the library being its own building, so I was able to hold the event outside. Facilities set up tables, chairs, and a giant trash barrel, and I silently prayed to Mother Nature. Thankfully, she came through. I also pre-scooped all the pumpkins myself—partly to save students time, and partly because I didn’t want pumpkin guts decorating the front steps.

The Big Carve

When we returned from fall break, the library patio was ready for action. The first day started slow, so my library assistant and I began the old-fashioned way: walking up to kids and asking, “Hey, want to carve a pumpkin?” The secret? Never ask just one student. Ask a pair. Peer pressure for good, not evil. Also don’t limit yourself to the library. I asked kids at lunch, during class, whenever I saw them around campus. There was no escaping me!

By the end of day one, I’d gone from worrying about leftover pumpkins to wondering if we had enough. The windows along the library’s front made perfect viewing for the pumpkin action outside. We popped out to chat, admire designs, and offer the occasional pep talk. Most students proudly called us over to admire their finished masterpieces—because no one, no matter how cool, ever outgrows wanting praise.

On Friday afternoon, I placed tea lights inside all the finished pumpkins and lit them up. The whole display glowed through the weekend, and it looked amazing. We awarded ribbons in five categories: “Ms. Pratt’s Favorite,” “Ms. Stiefel’s Favorite,” “Spookiest,” “Cutest,” and “Most Traditional.” The students were thrilled to see either their or a friend’s pumpkin get chosen!

Lessons Learned

All in all, a smashing success! I’ll absolutely run it again next year. There’s something magical about recurring programs—they become little traditions students actually look forward to.

Next time, I’ll lean harder into the competition side. Bigger signage for categories, maybe display the ribbons ahead of time, and definitely turn the awards and lighting into a mini-event. I picture pumpkins glowing after dark, hot cocoa in hand, and everyone pretending to be serious judges.

Also, note to self: wipe tables daily. Dried pumpkin residue can rival super glue in strength. 

How You Can Adapt It

I’m lucky to have outdoor space, supportive colleagues, and a schedule that allows time for carving chaos. But even without those things, you can absolutely do your own spin.

Try smaller sugar pumpkins with acrylic paint pens, or paper jack-o’-lanterns hung in the library windows. The key ingredients—creativity, friendly competition, and a dash of seasonal spirit—are free.If you have questions or want to trade programming ideas, feel free to reach out. And stay tuned—next up in my quest for programming domination: gingerbread houses.