The overarching vision for utilizing the AISL grant funds was to seamlessly “bring the outside in,” bridging the gap between natural science and our indoor learning spaces. The library, with its row of back windows offering a beautiful view of the school’s surrounding grounds, provided the perfect canvas for this initiative. Recognizing this potential, a science teacher approached the library team with an innovative idea for a cross-curricular collaboration. Together, we transformed the back of the library into a dedicated bird-watching sanctuary. Using the grant money, we purchased high-quality bird feeders and secure, weather-resistant storage containers for the feed, establishing a thriving, active ecosystem just outside our windows that students can observe and study daily.
Taking Flight: The Minnesota Raptors Project
Building on the success of the window sanctuary, we wanted to create a dramatic, immersive visual experience within the library’s main architectural feature: a large, open-air atrium space. We envisioned life-size replicas of indigenous Minnesota raptors soaring overhead.
To bring this ambitious idea to life, we utilized a multi-step design and fabrication process:

• Projection and Tracing: Using digital projectors, we displayed accurate, life-size silhouettes of the raptors onto the wall. These dimensions were meticulously traced onto large, flattened cardboard boxes to create sturdy, recycled canvases for the birds.
• Student-Led Artistry: The project truly became a community effort as students took the lead on the fabrication process. Using realistic photographic references, students painted the intricate feather patterns and distinct features of each raptor.
• Resource Management: Grant funds were strategically allocated to purchase high-quality acrylic paints, specialized brushes, and durable storage units to keep the supplies organized throughout the duration of the project.
• Reflecting on the Process: Because of the scale and attention to detail required, the tracing and painting phases represented a significant, long-term time commitment. However, the extended timeline allowed dozens of students to leave their mark on the project, fostering a deep sense of ownership and pride in our shared library space.

A True Community Effort: Installation and Exhibition

Bringing this vision to full fruition required teamwork that extended beyond the classroom. Over Spring Break, our incredible custodial team supported the project by installing a system of secure hanging wires high above the large, open space in the library. This critical behind-the-scenes work ensured the raptors could safely “fly” at their intended scale.
Before taking their permanent place in the rafters, the completed birds made their public debut. They were proudly featured in a school-wide art show centered around nature and environmental awareness. This exhibition allowed the students’ hard work to serve a dual purpose: it celebrated their artistic talents while sparking meaningful conversations among parents, staff, and peers about local wildlife conservation and our shared responsibility to protect these magnificent birds of prey.

Project Impact Summary

The final installation now stands as a permanent, student-created monument to Minnesota’s native wildlife, successfully merging science, art, school-wide collaboration, and environmental advocacy.

If you have ever worked with a middle schooler, you know they love graphic novels. Now more than ever, they are also demanding manga, or Japanese graphic novels. Along with manga, there is manhwa (South Korea), manhua (China), as well as other works with manga-esque illustrations from around the world. Manga is not my area of expertise, but I was a big fan of several anime series growing up, such as Dragon Ball Z, Rurouni Kenshin, and Pokémon. I have also always been drawn to graphic novels and find the expressiveness of the illustrations, and how those illustrations help drive the plot, to be engaging on many levels. Because of this, I find it easy to relate to your average middle schooler’s insatiable thirst for graphic novels and manga. And because keeping my students reading is my top priority, I have always dedicated a significant portion of my collection development fund to expanding our graphic novel selection. I have often said that I could spend my entire book budget on graphic novels and the kids would read them, and I say that only slightly in jest. But with so many other amazing novels, inspiring nonfiction, and materials needed for curricular connections, I have never really been able to dedicate as much money as I would have liked to this section of the library. The Vision to Reality Grant gave me the flexibility to explore new releases, expand on popular authors, and even work on expanding lengthy manga series. The project that unfolded during the 2025-2026 school year was titled “Drawn to the Library: Graphic Novel and Manga Collection Overhaul.”
Our Goal
The Vision to Reality Grant for the 2025-2026 school year really came at the perfect time for us to expand our graphic novel and manga collection. Waynflete School adopted a new schedule with 70 minute blocks, an increase from the previous year’s 50 minutes. Also, the school adopted a phone free policy across all grades. To accommodate the new needs of students during longer blocks, who are no longer attached to their phones, we felt that increasing access to visually appealing graphic novels would greatly benefit our students’ reading habits. Also, the short chapters and visual nature of most graphic novels lend themself to being the type of material that can be picked up and read for a short amount of time, which works well with longer blocks.
While our middle school was already phone free, the increased class length did cause some initial concern as to the feasibility of keeping middle school students engaged for that length of time. At this point in the year, I think the majority of those concerns have been alleviated, and my fellow teachers in the classrooms have done an excellent job of utilizing the full 70 minutes and incorporating both physical and mental breaks as needed. One area where I thought the impact of 70 minute blocks might really be felt was during the middle school’s supervised study hall. By providing high demand reading material such as graphic novels, we hoped to alleviate some of the pressure on study hall proctors by diverting some of those students into the library. Because we are an EC-12 school, our 6-12 students share a library, which is in the upper school building. This often creates an environment populated with high school students who can be seen as intimidating to our middle schoolers. By targeting the funding from the Vision to Reality Grant to collection development toward middle school students, we intended to increase ownership of the library by our middle schoolers and create an environment that is both welcoming to them and provides reading materials that they frequently desire. Without the funding for the grant, this would not have been possible, as the middle school has the smallest student body and, therefore, the smallest budget.
Learning More about Manga
While I knew that middle schoolers like graphic novels and manga, the first question was really: where to begin? This required learning a lot more about manga. I do have some familiarity with popular manga series, and there are certain manga series that I enjoy. This really forced me to look at this project through an impartial lens, to avoid getting stuck in the trap of buying material that I think people would like because I personally think they are good, as opposed to what books are actually in demand and well received by middle school students. My approach to this was to attend as many webinars on Manga and graphic novel collection development as I could find. The most beneficial webinar I viewed was presented by Britt Plotsky, the Manga Monarch. She provided a very informative overview of manga’s popularity, supported by her own library statistics as well as snapshots of manga on a national and global scale. She also provided a list of other Manga resources, including her own reviews of manga issues and series. This was very helpful for determining the appropriateness of some of these books for a middle school audience. Lastly, she included recommendations of other manga and graphic novel resources to use. Those included Good Comics for Kids, The Graphic Library, Manga Bookshelf, Manga Librarian, Manga Monarch, No Flying No Tight, and the ALA Graphic Novel and Comics Round Table. The Manga Librarian also includes a Wakelet of every manga resource she has, which is pretty comprehensive. Some of the other webinars included a reader’s advisor, which was also helpful, but I learned through a couple of accidental purchases that librarians’ idea of what is age appropriate can vary to some degree.
Making Difficult Choices
As badly as I wanted to buy the entire box set of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z for my own personal satisfaction, I knew I had to plan my spending out carefully to make sure that I was getting a wide range of titles that covered different interests and would support our readers of different ages. I also wanted to ensure that I was maximizing the amount of books we could purchase with the grant money, so I created a spreadsheet to keep track of what titles I wanted and how much they cost through different retailers.
I found that 3-in-1 manga issues were typically a lot cheaper, so I tended to favor those, especially for some of the longer manga series. Student feedback also directed me to favor 3-in-1s. One student suggested that since they read the books so fast, it is a lot easier to transport and keep track of the 3-in-1 volumes. If it prevents a book from getting lost, I am all for it. I also found several series that had small box sets, and felt comfortable buying these if they were around 5 volumes.
The sheet was primarily used to compare and contrast all the different price options. For example, is a box set the best option, or maybe buying each issue from our library wholesale provider? Is there a 3-in-1available, or can I find like-new used copies for the best price? All these considerations helped me stretch this money as far as possible and maximize the number of books we were able to add to the collection. A final difficult decision was how to divide the funds between manga and other graphic novels. I had initially intended to do a 60/40 split, favoring graphic novels. But as the demand for manga was there, and this has been an under-purchased area of our library, it ended up being closer to 60/40, favoring manga titles. This also unfolded organically, as there was demand from students for specific manga titles, while the demand for other graphic novels was a more general enjoyment of the medium. As non-manga style graphic novels are a regular part of my collection development and manga titles have been more frequently bought on an on-demand basis, dedicating a larger portion of the grant to manga titles felt justified. Not only did it bolster underrepresented materials in our library, but it also forced me to develop a better professional understanding of manga, which will serve to benefit future collection development.
We ended up with about 200 books, though a small amount of that total came from my yearly book purchasing budget, as I continued to purchase graphic novels with my regular book buying budget. That is this many middle schoolers worth of books!

• Middle school students holding some of the books added during this project.
  Considering What to Buy: This project came at an interesting time, as we switched our library’s management software at the end of last school year, so I did not have circulation statistics to base these decisions on. I felt a bit more comfortable with graphic novel selection and typically relied on starred reviews to direct my purchasing, especially from School Library Journal. I also expanded popular series and authors such as Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales, Raina Telgemeier,  Svetlana Chmakova, Shannon Hale, Lee Knox Ostertag, and Kayla Miller. We were also able to replace some lost and well-loved copies of some of those favorite authors. I also added sequels to titles that have been popular here, such as Curlfriends, Miss Quinces, Beetle and the Hollowbones, and Cool Code, to name a few.  I also noticed that The Babysitter Club, Emmie & Friends, Big Nate, and comic strips like Calvin and Hobbes and Foxtrot were popular. Newer comic strip style graphic novels, such as Huda Fahmy, have also proven to be continuously popular with our readers. Many of those items were added as donations or purchased previously and fell outside of the purview of this project, though it is worth noting that there is a consistent demand for these materials.  As is typical of my collection development, I really looked toward student demand to direct my purchasing. Student requests and suggestions are always my first priority. This did result in me investing a bit more into certain series that I would have on my own, but felt worth it to keep my students reading and engaged with the library. Other considerations included books that were related to popular movies or TV shows, or books that have recent film adaptations, such as Stranger Things and Demon Slayer. I also definitely took note of the recommended titles from the webinars I attended, especially those that provided middle school-specific readers’ advisory. This was particularly helpful with manga selection, as there were so many titles that I was unfamiliar with. These manga titles cover nearly every genre imaginable, including sports fiction, romance, science fiction, as well as the expected action and adventure tales. Some of these manga series are even considered quite educational, such as Dinosaur Sanctuary and Cells at Work. I will note that I did observe that the action and adventure manga are circulating the best. These recommendations were a great starting point, but the necessary work of finding reliable reviews of these books remained. 
  Reviewing the titles: I quickly discovered that finding professional reviews of manga is incredibly difficult, and not only that, but often only the first volume of a series is reviewed. As I also quickly learned, while the first volume of a series might be targeted toward middle school readers, later issues may contain more mature topics or content. The Manga Monarch was helpful in finding some reviews and provided a fairly detailed description of violence, language, sexual situations, and drug/alcohol use. She even includes individual volume reviews (to some extent), so later issues with vastly different maturity ratings are pointed out. These reviews come from Britt Plotsy’s personal reading and reviewing of manga titles, so are limited to what she has read and categorized. I also found Manga Librarian, Manga in the Middle, and Manga Bookshelf to have useful reviews. 
  Another piece of advice I gathered from one of the manga webinars I watched was that IMDb reviews of a manga’s anime adaptation can be a helpful starting point. These are all good options when your favorite review database does not have the information that you need.  Reviews for graphic novels were much easier to find through your typical avenues. My personal favorite review database is Novelist Plus. If you have access to this database, it typically provides reviews from sources such as School Library Journal, Kirkus, Booklist, and Publishers Weekly, all in one place for a title if they are available. 
  Cataloging, Processing, and Setting the Books Free: After all the fun of purchasing wore off, it then became time to get to work so that these books could go to students. There was also a huge delay with our wholesale book distributor, Ingram. This resulted in some of these books taking multiple months to arrive, which was disappointing for both the students and me. Cataloging all these new items really opened up a few flaws in our current records, namely the lack of series information. As new items came in, especially those that were continuations of existing series in our collections, it necessitated the addition of that series information. I also wanted to include the volume number in the series so that students are more easily able to find the next item. This was treated as local catalog information, so I was able to adopt the language that would be most likely searched by our students. This was done for both the convenience of searching and the lack of existing series information for many titles. 
  As I worked through some of this information, I realized that we have a large amount of existing records to go through to update and standardize our series information. Other unique cataloging changes included adding graphic novel and manga as genres. Some may argue that those are not genres, but a medium, though we find it helpful for our readers to be able to sort those items in that way. Though it did take some time to catalog and process all the books, thanks to some very helpful volunteers, the books were ready for students!   Me halfway through cataloging:

(Librarian pounding head into their computer after cataloging 200 graphic novels.)
Another big consideration was whether manga should have its own section of the library, as currently they are interfiled with the rest of the graphic novels. While this has some appeal due to the demand for some students specifically for manga, it opened up many questions, such as what to do with the manhwa and manhau, or English publication with manga-style illustration. It still seems like this could benefit our readers when we have more time to undertake a project of this magnitude. The ability to separate the manga from the graphic novels would also necessitate more shelf space, another project to be considered at a later date.
The Results: As mentioned above, we were able to purchase around 200 items, which made a visible impact on our middle school and young adult graphic novel collections, which previously included about 525 items. There was a noticeable increase in items when looking at the shelves. These photos show our graphic novel sections before and after the project in our Middle School Graphic Novel section:

• A view of our middle school graphic novels before the project. 

A view of our middle school graphic novels after the project.
And in our Young Adult Graphic Novel section:

First view of the young adult graphic novels before the project.

• Second view of the young adult graphic novel section before the project. 

• First view of our young adult graphic novel section after the project.

• Second view of our graphic novel section after the project. 
  There has also been a noticeable increase in middle school students coming to the library throughout the day, especially during their study hall and office hours. These are the times they have the most freedom to visit the library, as middle school students do not have any unsupervised time. As a middle school librarian, it has always been important to me that the middle school students feel that the library is their space, despite the constant presence of intimidating high schoolers. Other than providing the materials that best fit their desires, this project was intended to help create a more welcoming space for middle school students in the library, as it happens to be an upper school building. By heavily investing in materials targeted towards that age range, I hoped to encourage a more consistent presence of middle school students and increase the amount of time they spend in the library during each visit.  We do not keep visitation statistics, but I have personally noticed this increase in middle school students visiting the library. This is partially due to efforts to encourage library use during office hours and study hall in an attempt to alleviate some of the pressure of long blocks on other teachers who have supervision duties during those times, but I also feel that this collection development project has shown middle schoolers that we have their reading interesting in mind and are working to make the library one of their go to places to hang out on campus. I have often felt that middle schoolers are some of the most frequent readers in our library, so it was really a pleasure to dedicate so much focus to developing an area of the library they hold so dear. 

Students browsing in the graphic novel section.
While purchasing was targeted at a middle school audience, we also noticed an increase in upper school students utilizing the new graphic novels and manga additions. One of the original ideas behind this project was that the graphic novel and manga medium lend themselves to being easy to pick up and quickly read, even when a student might not have a lot of time. As upper school students tend to be much busier with schoolwork, we often see them reading less. The increase in students’ reading, especially those who I don’t see checking out books from the library as often as others, was a very positive result of this project. One high school student even mentioned that because they watched the show, they thought they wanted to check out the book for the One Piece series. Other students, who I would consider some of our more frequent readers, were happy to see additions to their favorite series and suggest other titles. I was happy to see that this project had such a positive impact on upper school students. As we recently switched our library’s ILS, we do not have statistics to compare with last year. Still, we all feel that there has been a general increase in circulation this year. Feedback from students has also been positive. Responses have included: 
“Whoa, you have that!”  “Oh my god, that is my favorite book!”  “That book was amazing.”  “Yes! I have been waiting to read this.”
“It would be cool if you had Spy x Family… wait, you do?!”
Or my personal favorite: “Do you have any more Bleach?”
I am very grateful to AISL for organizing the Vision to Reality Grant. It has allowed for a significant increase in a section of our library that was underrepresented and forced me to take a deeper look at what materials would best suit our students’ needs in that area. It also allowed me to dedicate more time and materials to support our middle school students and help move our library to a more middle school friendly area. I found the entire process very helpful professionally, as I now know a lot more about manga and can more closely relate to the students who love the medium. Expansion of the other graphic novels was also a pleasure, as I have always felt a spark of creativity from viewing the amazing artwork present in these books. I am hopeful that others will also be inspired by these works and that this project will inspire continued development in graphic novels at our school. Improving the collection in this way would have taken years without the Vision to Reality Grant, and I truly feel that these improvements would not have been possible without it. While I wrap up this project, it has also brought to light other areas that the library can improve, such as improved records and shelf spacing. These, among a few other projects, will be the next step in our continuous attempt to improve the library and make it a welcoming and desirable place for students to enjoy.

This past year I received a “Vision to Reality” Grant from AISL to create a YA section for
my Junior High students. I am the Research Center Coordinator at Lake Country School, a pk-8 Montessori School in South Minneapolis serving roughly 300 students. We have a single library for the school, and curating a collection in one space to span that age range has always been a challenge.
When I took the job 5 years ago, I began to see a need for a more robust and
appropriate selection of books for our oldest students. The English teacher had novels on her shelves, but they were rather dated and tended to reflect her tastes rather than what students might want to read in their spare time. I began to dream of a space where I could feature current novels, graphic novels and nonfiction titles that actually appealed to 13 and 14 year olds.
Luckily, our Junior High space has a common area with beautiful floor to ceiling oak
bookshelves. However, they were filled with a random collection of encyclopedias and attractive but unused sets of books. I got permission to take over part of the space, and with a combination of internal funds and the AISL grant, began the project. Last summer I stocked the shelves with books that I had chosen – award winners, JLG selections, books with starred reviews, and books that I knew would appeal to specific students. I also moved a few titles from the main library that belonged in the new section. Response from students has been great, though due to an unwieldy checkout system, I don’t have the circulation data I’d like – something to work on.
With the AISL grant, I was able to involve the students in a more direct way in collection
development. I asked each student (as well as the teachers) to suggest a book OR a genre that they would like to see on the shelves (vetted by me, of course!) As might be expected, some choices were not entirely age-appropriate, and in those cases, I asked for alternate titles. With my library apprentices, I made a spreadsheet of the suggestions coded by genre, and was surprised and delighted to discover that the categories were roughly balanced. I added some selections from my own “to purchase” list and worked with a local independent bookstore to fill the order.
As the books arrived, I placed a bookplate in each with that student’s name and the year.
I plan to mention the donor’s name when doing book talks next year, and hope to find some way to continue a tradition of students adding a book to the library – maybe when they graduate?
Many thanks to AISL for supporting this endeavor!

Part 1: A Map for the Future

I have a confession. When I first started as a school librarian I had a lot of frustrations with the 300’s. Arriving in my 9-12 library after a history PhD and years as a librarian at research universities, I was intimately familiar with Library of Congress call numbers, and very rusty on Dewey. Initially, I chalked up my frustrations with Dewey–especially the way the 300’s pulled critical aspects of history out of “History” (in a 900’s sense) when it involved minority groups like women, African Americans, Native Americans, and immigrants–to a need to break my old LCC habits.
But, why do we use Dewey? Our mission is to prep our students for college level research, but we aren’t teaching them college library organization. So, I fantasized about a college prep high school library that was organized by LCC instead. What would that look like? What would we gain? What might we lose? How much work would it take? This post is the first in a series as I answer those questions.
Right now I am neck-deep in transitioning my collection from DDS to LCC, and the number one reason I committed to this work boils down to consistency of purpose. Our school prepares our students for college–and in my domain, particularly college level research and information skills. Colleges use Library of Congress call numbers. Instead of teaching my students how to navigate our library and information landscape in Dewey, then sending them off to much larger libraries that use a more expansive and totally foreign looking system and pretending I prepared them, I decided that the work is worth the potential.
Further contemplating the potential gains and losses, I realized another thing. Currently, I have to help many of my students find books in the stacks because they can’t follow a call number to the right spot on the shelves. Despite having had library instruction in lower and middle school, I consistently have students tell me they can’t find a book that, when I go to look with them, is exactly where it should be. So, it shouldn’t be extra work to teach them how to find things when they get to the upper school and encounter a new system. I am already teaching them how to find things, why not use the opportunity to teach them the system they will use as they continue their education and give them a chance to learn and practice it while they have me to provide lots of support. I also teach our 9th graders about controlled vocabularies and subject headings (see my Lego Lesson for how I do this), so switching to LCC means that I am aligning the physical shelf layout with the search language which should reduce cognitive friction: no more searching in one language (LCSH) and finding in another (DDS).
(I should note, briefly, that we genrefied our fiction collection several years ago, and it remains separate in this reclassification process. Fiction will still be labeled/shelved by genre and author last name. Reclassifying has raised some of my longstanding questions about where to put certain works of literature, ie. should Austen, Twain, etc. be in our popular reading or in 800s (now P Class) P Class? We moved our graphic novels from the 740s to our genrefied collection as their own genre. This move highlighted that short-handing our collection into “Fiction” and “Non-fiction” doesn’t really account for the 800’s/P’s or narrative non-fiction intended for popular reading, and perhaps that is why those areas of our stacks are so dusty.)
There are a few other conceptual wins that I hope will subtly help our students in their research. One is that the date of publication will be much more visible, being the 4th line of the LCC call number. Currently (pun intended), despite both me and their teachers talking about recent scholarship, many students compose preliminary bibliographies with deeply out of date resources despite more current ones being available on the shelf. Our students often treat the publication date as a ‘post-production’ detail—something for the bibliography. By making the year the fourth line of the call number, we move currency to the ‘pre-production’ phase. It turns the shelf into a physical timeline. A student looking for Vietnam War research can now visually distinguish between a primary source published in 1967 and a historiography published in 2024 without even opening the cover. I hope that the increased visibility will enable my students to start paying more attention.
Circling back to my problem with the 300s, reclassification is shifting where things sit on the shelves in ways that largely brings books together by topic. Reclassifying is healing the fractures that previously existed, particularly for topics that used to sit in the 300s rather than 900s. For example, a student looking at the American Civil Rights Movement in our shelves would have to move from books in 301 (Social Structure), then move over 12 shelves to 305.48 (Women), then another 3 shelves to find 305.8 (Ethnic and National Groups), before moving 15 shelves down in another aisle to find books at 320 (Political Science, Politics and Government), then 4 more shelves down to 323 (Civil and Political Rights), before finally needing to go half way across the library (5 aisles of stacks over) to get to 973.8 (History, US, 1901-). As we reclassify to LCC, our students can find all of those same books at E185 (United States–Afro-Americans–Status and development since emancipation). Other works, like certain literary non-fiction (The Journey Home, by Edward Abbey, for example) are moving out of history and to language/literature. In the case of Abbey, reuniting this work with his others in PS3551 (American Literature by authors, 1900-1960). In a future post, once all the data is complete, I’ll share more about what shifts and where in this transition, but so far numerous topics–like civil rights–are feeling more coherent.
(I am also in the midst of a large and long overdue weeding project that will make dated options less available. But, even so, I  notice that many of the books our students request through our borrowing partnership with a local university are also frequently very old, despite other options being available.)
Given these advantages, it’s important to acknowledge why I struggled to find examples of schools that use LCC. The two most powerful–and entwined–reasons are tradition and inertia. School and public libraries use Dewey. And, because our school libraries are already using Dewey (tradition), the real, time consuming, and challenging work of reclassifying an entire library is a major obstacle (inertia). If we set those aside–I’ll come back to the latter in subsequent posts in this series–we may find that we encounter the ideas of tradition and inertia among our faculty and administrators as well. To anticipate and respond to faculty push-back, I hope that the reasons above will speak for themselves. But, for other resistance, your individual context may hold the keys. At our school, our faculty have a fierce independent streak. This worked to my advantage in some ways as it means I have a large degree of independence in my space, too–I didn’t need to present this change as a proposal to our faculty or make much of a case at all. Within the context of teacher and department autonomy, the library is seen as my domain so I am trusted to do what I think is best.
Also particular to my context, I am moving our whole collection to a new library in a new upper school building this summer. Potential faculty discomfort at not knowing their way around the space as well (“the books about Europe have always been right there!”) is moot–everything is moving anyway. To mitigate the “lost” feeling, I am also investing heavily in clear, disciplinary signage—using the faculty’s own language (e.g., flagging subclasses in DS (Asia) for Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia, the regional history classes we teach, instead of just ‘DS’) to bridge the gap. Even without moving buildings, clear signage or maps can mitigate the fear of being disoriented.
Ultimately, I identify reclassifying as a pedagogical act of backwards design. My goal is to teach students to do research of a high caliber so they are prepared to do research at the college level when they graduate. Reclassifying my collection isn’t, then, a clerical library task; it’s an act of information architecture–turning our stacks into the infrastructure of instruction. By aligning our shelves with the systems of the academy, I am giving our students a map that doesn’t expire at graduation–quite literally changing the shape of their research journey.

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.

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.

Like many school librarians, I like to post what I’m reading so the kids can see that I
practice what I preach! I especially enjoy posting what I read over the summer, since I have
more time to read then. Following a rather too-eventful summer in 2024, I decided to
schedule in more down time this year—aka reading time! The AISL Summer Book Bingo
provided the perfect starting incentive, and I was determined to fill all 25 of the squares,
which I did. I really enjoyed the opportunity to read some books that differed from my usual
fare (I mean, Japanese Cat Lit? Who knew that was a thing? ).

I also read a lot of other books, primarily audiobooks. I listen to audiobooks in the car,
when I’m getting ready in the morning, when I’m out walking, and when I’m getting ready for
bed (that’s cozy mystery time!). While public library is a great source of audiobooks, if you
are not familiar with the Libro.FM program for educators, definitely check it out! Every
month it offers educators something like 20 free, pre-chosen audiobooks, and I love getting
that email and going to the site to see what they have on offer. Though I generally choose
the middle school books, as that’s my student population, the site always offers a number
of YA titles and several adult books as well. I love that this program leads me to discover
books I wouldn’t otherwise encounter or read, like The Mizzy Mysteries: A Skeleton in the
Closet by Claire Hatcher-Smith. In this family mystery, the detective has Down’s Syndrome,
and the audiobook is read by a person with Down’s.
Last night I used LibraryThing to put together a graphic of the covers of all the books I read
over the summer, which I will post by my desk for the kids to see when they arrive. One of
the site’s useful tools is that after you enter books by title or ISBN into a list, it can generate
thumbnail covers of all the books in that list. From there, I used the snipping tool to put
together my graphic.
Welcome back, and I hope you find some wonderful books this year!