It all started with one unique name for a town’s ice cream shop.

Last year, Adrienne Jimerson, a first-grade teacher at Kempsville Elementary, was preparing guided reading lessons for her students, which included selecting leveled fluency readers for their homework.

The fluency books she uses “came with the classroom” when she moved to first- from third-grade in 2009, and were purchased by one of the school’s former principals.

While perusing the titles she paused at one in particular; though she’d seen it many times, there was something about it that piqued her interest this time around. The book, “Ice Cream Shop,” featured a shop with a very peculiar name, Petrucci’s.

Petrucci’s also happened to be the name of an ice cream stand in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, about 400 miles from Virginia Beach. Jimerson, then a student at Valley Forge Christian College (now Valley Forge University), would frequent that stand with friends throughout her time there.

On a whim, Jimerson emailed the book’s publishing company, Wilbooks, to see if the book was written about the same shop.

Less than 24 hours later, Jimerson had a representative from Wilbooks calling her back. She confirmed the shop was indeed the object of the story and one of the owners of the Petrucci’s also worked at the publishing company.

Throughout the conversation, Jimerson mentioned how beneficial the book was for her readers and how much the students enjoyed its story. The publishing company passed along those sentiments to the book’s author, Bruce Larkin.

In hearing this, Larkin, sent two additional copies of “Ice Cream Shop” for Jimerson’s classroom library, both signed by himself as well as “Mr. and Mrs. C,” the ice cream shop’s owners. Additionally, Wilbooks included one signed copy of “50 Facts About Jackalopes,” also written by Larkin, for every first- through fifth-grade teacher at Kempsville Elementary.

Thank you, Wilbooks and Bruce Larkin for supporting our young readers!

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