My Library Is... Creating Natural Leaders and Advancing CARES Values

Planting Seeds Of Leadership: How Great Books Are Growing Natural Leaders 

At Prairie Crossing Charter School (PCCS) in Grayslake, IL, we believe that children are our best hope to improve the world. But how do you transform that belief into a daily reality for 432 K-8 students? For us, the answer lies in the pages of a book. 

Through our 2025 RAILS Grant project, "My Library Is… Creating Natural Leaders and Advancing CARES Values," we’ve spent the past year proving that literacy is the ultimate tool for character building. By integrating the Illinois Readers’ Choice Awards and Blueberry Books with our core environmental and social values, we aren’t just teaching kids to read; we’re teaching them how to lead. 

The CARES Framework 

Our school culture is built on CARES values: 

• Collaborative 
• Aware 
• Respectful 
• Empowered 
• Sustainable 

This year, we took a new approach. We tied these values directly to the Monarch (K-2), Bluestem (3-4), and Rebecca Caudill (5-8) reading challenges. We also introduced the Blueberry Awards (K-2), which focus on environmental themes—a perfect fit for our campus, where we compost, host trash-free lunches, and grow our own food. 

The Grant in Action: From Pages to Prizes 

Thanks to the generous support from RAILS, we were able to purchase 232 books across all grade levels. Thank you RAILS! We are so forever grateful. But we didn't want the books to just sit on shelves; we wanted them to spark conversation. 

For our younger students (K-2), we read the books aloud and discussed how characters illustrated being a "good person" and doing the right thing. Our older students took a more analytical route, completing book reviews that asked them to identify which CARES principles were present in the narrative. 

The result? Students were looking for empathy, sustainability, and empowerment in every chapter. 

Making it Fun: Incentives and The Freeze

Let’s be honest: a little healthy competition and a few treats go a long way! When students voted for their favorite book, they earned treasures ranging from Pokémon cards to custom bookmarks. 

The highlight for our 6 K-2 classes was the "Grand Prize" for finishing all 20 Monarch books: a special lunch with our Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Zamiar, and me, and a voucher for a free ice cream cone from The Freeze in downtown Grayslake. Seeing the excitement on their faces—like young Huck, who told me reading Monarch Books was "better than gym!"—makes every hour of spreadsheet tracking worth it. 

Lessons Learned and Looking Ahead 

No project is without its "growth moments." We learned that paper book reviews are hard for middle schoolers to track (hello, Google Forms for next year!) and that facilitating school-wide voting during lunch is a logistical marathon. 

However, the impact is undeniable. We saw two 7th graders, Nurah and McKayla, breeze through all 20 Rebecca Caudill nominees. When they finished, they weren't just asking for prizes; they were asking for the 2027 list so they could get a head start. 

A Community of Readers 

This project has reminded us that when you give a child a book, you give them a map for how to navigate the world. By connecting these stories to our CARES values, we are helping our students become natural leaders—one page at a time. 

A huge thank you to RAILS, AISLE, The Evanston Public Library, The Freeze, and our local community for supporting the next generation of global citizens. 

Today's blog post was written by Ms. Francine Porembski, Instructional Reading Assistant at Prairie Crossing Charter School in Grayslake, IL.  

This project was made possible by the My Library Is... Grant.