COMMACK SCHOOLS

Indian Hollow first-grade teacher Tara Wider wrote a message on a local Facebook group congratulating a new author.

Then, after looking at the author’s name more closely, Wider realized the author was her student from two decades ago.

After a few follow-up messages, Wider invited the Indian Hollow alum back to the primary school to share her book with Wider’s current students. The reunion — and the book reading — happened on Friday.

Indian Hollow alum Jaclyn Inzalaco read her children’s book, “Angelo the Tangelo Celebrates His Family Tree,” to Wider’s first-grade class.

All of Inzalaco’s former teachers from two decades ago remain at Indian Hollow— Wider (then a kindergarten teacher), Jeanne Waldman in first grade and Deb Polizzi in second grade.

Waldman reminded the current students how she tells them in class that they are authors … and how they can grow up to be an author, too.

Inzalaco, who now lives in Connecticut, is an pediatric occupational therapist. She works with children with autism. 

Writing a children's book had been her dream. 

“Angelo the Tangelo Celebrates His Family Tree” explores the themes of family diversity, self-acceptance and the celebration of differences through the lens of a delightful fruit character, Angelo, and his classmates in Mrs. Kapple the Pineapple’s fruit bowl classroom.