International Story Time: Puss in Boots

Appalachian State University's Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures and High Country Humanities – in collaboration with the Watauga County Public Library – is pleased to present “International Story Time,” a series of storytelling sessions by App State faculty members and students during the Spring 2026 semester.

Pre-K children, elementary school students, and parents are all invited to these free public events, where faculty and students from the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures will read children’s stories from different cultures. Event leaders will also teach participants a few fun vocabulary words in another language.

Puss in Boots by Charles Perrault with Dr. Darci L. Gardner
Dr. Darci L. Gardner, professor of French and director of High Country Humanities, will read Puss in Boots by Charles Perrault. Dr. Gardner's research focuses on 19th- and 20th-century France, literature and the visual arts, cognitive approaches to literature, and aesthetics. She has published articles on Marcel Proust, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Marie Krysinska in journals such as Philosophy and Literature, French Studies, and Poetics Today, and she is the coeditor of Volume 2 of the complete works of Marie Krysinska.