Every year, the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books becomes livelier and brighter due to the growing number of attendees. From book lovers, casual readers, and literary collectors to authors and publishers, people gathered to celebrate literacy.
The largest book festival in the US opened its doors last April for a glamorous two-day weekend celebration with the bookworms. Held at the University of Southern California, many book enthusiasts, book lovers, and book collectors, as well as writers, established authors, and many more, attended the free event.
A lot of bookfair-goers went by the Citi of Books booth to check for their next read and potential favorite book. One of the books that were chosen is “JET & Scoot: Take Manhattan” by Stephanie Smith-Kenny. It was displayed on April 20th and 21st at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at the University of Southern California.
Stephanie Smith-Kenny is a California native, happily married with two amazing young adult sons. She resides and writes from her home in Del Mar, with her beloved Golden Retriever, Hudson, always near her desk. Stephanie’s three ideal keys to her happiness are: to raise a family, to run one marathon, and to write a book.
Reading to her sons every night will remain one of her greatest inspirations for writing JET & Scoot, which would ultimately become an award-winning children’s book. Her greatest challenge, however, was to find just the right illustrator.
That illustrator had been right under her nose for years, having grown up as her oldest son’s best friend since kindergarten, Lauren Looney. As Lauren grew up, she started taking a strong interest in art, painting, and sketching. Over the years, she studied and developed her gift, and she is now attending Northeastern University. Together, since 2018, Stephanie and Lauren have collaborated, created, and had their adventure in creating the world and the book series for JET & Scoot.
Between the author and the illustrator, their first book, “JET & Scoot: A Story About Us,” has won seven awards.
“JET & Scoot: Take Manhattan” is a fun and engaging story about two friends. Best pals JET and Scoot are eager to have adventures together. Living next door, they greet each other with a hand signal that they keep under wraps. After that, get together at their designated location to begin their adventure on Saturday.
Summer came, and the adventure leveled up as they took a big and fun journey that they named “Adventure Summer.” Join JET and Scoot as they experience the heat in the Big City of Manhattan.
Grab a copy here: https://citiofbooks.com/bookstore/action-adventure/jet-scoot-take-manhattan/.
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