Books + Ice Cream = Scoops of Stories

Okay, normally I wouldn’t recommend combining books with ice cream—aside from the sticky pages, can you imagine paper cuts on your tongue?—but this is a fun idea: Scoops of Stories.

Salt & Straw is an ice cream company based here in Portland, Oregon, that has spread to several other cities in the past few years. They’re known for their sometimes unusual flavor combinations; one of my old favorites was strawberry with balsamic vinegar and black pepper! Well, Tyler Malek of Salt & Straw has partnered with Scholastic to create a Rad Readers menu based on five kids’ books, starting this weekend.

Here are the flavor names and descriptions:

• “Goosebumps: Monster Blood Is Back!” inspired by Goosebumps by R. L. Stine
  Streaks of citrus-y, shiny green goo suspend hunks of deep red strawberry bark. If you hear strange gurgling noises coming from your pint… run for your life!
• “Geronimo Stilton & The Frosted Frozen Feast” inspired by Geronimo Stilton by Elisabetta Dami
  Salted caramel is paired with parmesan-steeped cream, made rich with mascarpone cheesecake and crumbles of buttery cracker crust for the most marve-mousely magnificent ice cream.
• “Smile: Words & Pictures” inspired by Smile by Raina Telgemeier
  Pencil-inspired yellow and pink almond-infused sponge cake and stracciatella “pencil shavings” are strewn about a notebook paper-esque canvas, in this case, trusty vanilla ice cream. Draw your spoons and scoop your own flavor story!
• “Amulet: Fruit of the Gadoba Tree” inspired by Amulet by Kazu Kibuishi
  Otherworldly flavors of cacao nibs are steeped in sweet cream, featuring dollops of the Salt & Straw kitchen’s real-life concoction of the mysterious, juicy “Gadoba” fruit.
• “Twins: Pear w/ Twinnamon Swirl” inspired by Twins by Varian Johnson and Shannon Wright
  Pairing up a dynamic combination of two decidedly unique flavors, whips of housemade cinnamon-laced cream cheese meets sweet and fragrant pear ice cream.

And here’s two sweet bonuses! Kids can win a chance to create a flavor combo in the Fiction to Flavor Contest: write a short story and design a book cover, and the winner will work with Tyler Malek to bring the flavor to life. (Runner-ups will get ice cream and gift cards to Bookshop.org.) And as a thank-you to teachers for all the challenges from this past year, in particular, teachers can get a free scoop at any Salt & Straw location this weekend (through Monday, May 31) by showing their school ID.