Jada Melville ’25, who is a student learning from home at AFS this year, spent some of her pandemic time away from school writing a book that is now on sale on Amazon! Check out Jada and her family talking about their book “Philly Through My Car Window” on Fox Philly and read what she had to say about the process in a Q&A.

What inspired you to write a book and why did you choose to write it about Philly?
My father, sister, and I would spend a lot of time driving around the city and looking at different historical locations. One day, my father had the idea of turning our car rides into a book for people to read and learn about all of the amazing historical aspects of the city. Eventually, we started working on the book and it started out with taking lots of pictures and figuring out which monuments and parts of the city we were going to incorporate into the book. Over time, we were able to create an interactive book/tour guide around the city and we’re so proud of how it has turned out

The book is interactive in a way. Can you explain how it works?
Our book “Philly Through My Car Window” uses QR codes throughout the pages in order to enhance the experience of traveling around the city. All you have to do to use them is go to the camera app on your phone and hover the camera over the QR code. A link should pop up at the top of the screen, Once you have seen the link you can click on it and it will take you to a virtual google map of that location.

What do you hope people will get from the book?
We hope that people will learn a thing or two about the city of Philadelphia while reading our book. There is an index at the back of the book that provides context for each of the locations. Not only will this help readers to better understand the different locations throughout the book, but it also allows parents to take on the role of being the tour guide for their children when reading the book. We also would like for people to use the book as an opportunity to do something fun and interactive while in the midst of a pandemic.