STARRING JULES (AS HERSELF)

Lights! Camera! Action! A funny and charming chapter book debut from a fabulous new talent!

Up until now, Jules has led a relatively normal life—or as normal as life can be growing up in New York City. She lives in an apartment on the Upper West Side with her creative and charming artist mom and chef dad and her little brother, "Big Henry," and stresses about avoiding her annoying former best friends while impressing her hopefully future best friend, a new classmate from London. But quirky, bold, and hilarious Jules has always had a knack for standing out in a crowd, so it’s not a complete surprise to anyone when her standard antics—singing an impromptu jingle out loud at a restaurant—gets the attention of a casting director sitting at a nearby table.

The director just happens to be holding auditions for a kid's mouthwash commercial, and she’s convinced that Jules would be perfectly suited for the starring role. Jules is ecstatic… until she realizes that she has to actually swig the mouthwash—orange mouthwash—and she absolutely, positively can’t stand anything about orange, not since she got sick from orange sherbet in the back of a taxi.

But Jules isn’t quite ready to give up, and so she turns to her parents, her grandmother, and even her old best friends for advice. The audition is about more than just this one commercial. It’s about facing her fears and being true to herself, even if that means not getting this particular part—especially when an even brighter opportunity could be waiting just around the corner. A sneak peek at Book 2, STARRING JULES (almost), reveals another acting opportunity arising for Jules who finds that balancing her real-life and her new professional life gets tricky—especially when her old best friend and her new best friend suddenly seem to be in cahoots!

Raised in Allentown, PA, Beth Ain is a country girl at heart who spent so much more of her life in New York City than she ever thought she would. She found her time there both fulfilling and fruitful and the lifestyle helped her hone in on the neuroses of both her kids and herself. Enter Jules Bloom. Now that Jules is fully formed, Beth felt she could leave the city for suburbia, where she breathes a little easier and has found a whole new host of things to be concerned about. She lives in Port Washington, New York, along with her husband and their two children.