The International Professional Development Site (IPDS) program is an extension of an already well established consortium of 45 elementary schools serving the Department of Elementary Education and Reading (EER) at Buffalo State College. In general, teachers from these PDSs serve the department in mentoring childhood and early childhood majors during pre-student teaching field events associated with their methods courses in literacy, social studies, mathematics and science as well as the culminating student teaching experience. The IPDS option organized by the author is located in Torremaggiore, a small medieval town in the Province of Foggia in southeastern Italy. The school, San Giovanni Bosco, is the only elementary public school in the town and is situated in two buildings: one serving children in the early childhood domain, including Kindergarten and Grade 1, and the other serving children from grade two through grade five. Approximately 300 children, most of Italian descent, are currently enrolled in the school; less than 3% are children of Eastern European families recently immigrated to the area. A pilot study was conducted to examine the efficacy of using bilingual (English/ Italian) informational texts written by the participating pre-service teachers (PSTs) to promote reading interest, comprehension in English, and knowledge of American culture. The decision to have the PSTs write the books was fostered by the fact that purchase of such appropriately leveled texts for distribution and use by the children was not financially viable. Specific questions guiding this study were: (1) Did the bilingual texts that PSTs constructed promote emerging bilinguals' comprehension of texts written in the L2 while expanding their knowledge of American culture?; (2) To what degree did the children engage with the bilingual texts?; and (3) How did the PSTs feel about the construction and use of bilingual texts they had made for the Italian learners?