Book excerpt: Stories are all around us. From our digital newsfeeds, interactions with one another, to watching a movie or listening to a curated playlist, we see and hear different tales told to us in various ways.In her book, Story: Still the Heart of Literacy Learning, author and teacher Katie Egan Cunningham reminds us that when we bridge reading strategies with the power of story, we can deepen literacy learning and foster authentic engagement with students. Cunningham shows how to create classrooms of caring and inquisitive readers, writers, and storytellers. Inside you'll find: How to build a diverse, multicultural classroom library that reflects all voices through rich, purposeful, and varied texts Numerous examples of multi-genre and multi-modal stories from children's and young adult literature A practical toolkit at the end of each chapter to demonstrate how to make stories come alive in any classroom Throughout the book, Cunningham shares her experiences as a teacher, literacy specialist, and staff developer and how building and talking about stories brings them to life. She honors the importance of teaching strategies to read different kinds of text, to write across genres, and to speak and listen with purpose while reminding us about the importance of story.