What happens when you combine Advanced French, classic fairy tales, and a lesson in digital citizenship? For four Berkeley Carroll Upper School students, it was a month-long collaborative project that ended with hand-bound books, lively classroom discussions, and a visit to a neighboring Brooklyn school.

Leah T ‘27., Isko O. ‘29, Camilla D. ‘27, and Millie H. ‘27 spent the past month partnering with the third-grade French dual language class at PS110 to create illustrated, hand-bound children's books. They were original, modern retellings of classic fairy tales with digital citizenship woven throughout as the central theme. The project began with research: the BC students gathered information from their future readers about favorite books, beloved fairy tales, and how they use technology in school and at home. A Zoom session followed, giving both groups a chance to meet and for the BC students to test out early ideas before tailoring each story specifically to their audience.

The books themselves came to life with significant help from Upper School Visual Arts Teacher Sophie Imamura, who led a bookbinding and design workshop for the class. Her guidance pushed students to think creatively about form as well as content, and she continued to work with students individually as their projects took shape. Her involvement, the class noted, was pivotal.

The culminating visit to PS110 brought everything together. Leah, Isko, Camilla, and Millie presented the project to the entire third-grade class before breaking into smaller groups to read their books aloud. The conversations that followed were both funny and insightful, as students unpacked the moral of each story and dug into the digital citizenship themes embedded in the narratives. To close out the visit, the third graders shared what they had learned with the whole class, and the BC students helped them draft a technology contract: a practical, student-authored document they will reference for the remainder of the school year. Each hand-bound book was also added permanently to the class library.