WBZ-TV's "It Happens Here" segment visited Plainville, Mass., to explore "a bookstore with a storied history of its own."
"It's called An Unlikely Story, but we wanted everything about it to tell a story," said owner and bestselling author Jeff Kinney. "I wrote the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, the first book, a few blocks from here."
Noting that the "weathered store was built across the street before oxen dragged it to its current location," WBZ-TV reported that the bookstore "strives to tell the story of its many chapters…. Walking through these storied shelves, you quickly realize that having a town revolve around a bookstore isn't as unlikely of a story as you may think."
"We found the signs, the photos of the signs, and then we recreated the signs. So all the way around the perimeter, in order of existence, are the things this building used to be," Kinney said. "The floors, for example, are from an old horseshoe nail making company in Dorchester, Massachusetts…. I'm really hoping to build up more of the town around the bookstore and to have the bookstore be the jewel of the town."