Embracing the Future.
In 2025, ARPress reached a new milestone by joining the China Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair (CCBF), one of the Asia-Pacific region’s leading events dedicated to children’s and young adult content. Held from 14 to 16 November at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center, the fair reinforced our mission to champion diverse voices and cross-cultural storytelling. With a history of participating in major global book fairs, ARPress welcomed the opportunity to engage with CCBF’s vibrant international community.
Approved by the Shanghai Press & Publication Administration and organized by major Chinese publishing groups, with Ronbo BolognaFiere Shanghai Ltd. as co-organizer, CCBF has been a cornerstone of global children’s publishing since 2013. Its partnership with the Bologna Children’s Book Fair reflects China’s “going global and bringing in” strategy, promoting international exchange and introducing outstanding global titles to Chinese readers. The 2025 edition hosted around 500 exhibitors from more than 35 countries across its 25,000-square-meter venue, drawing tens of thousands of visitors and showcasing thousands of new titles, artworks, and multimedia projects.
The fair featured two main zones: a Copyright Zone focused on rights trading and a Hybrid Zone blending publishing, marketing, and retail. ARPress was honored to exhibit in the Copyright Zone at Booth 2A17, presenting curated fiction, nonfiction, and poetry collections. CCBF’s renowned programming continued in 2025, with the Golden Pinwheel Young Illustrators Competition receiving over 15,000 submissions, the Illustrators Survival Corner offering masterclasses and portfolio reviews, the Children Plus – COMICS exhibition highlighting nearly 200 international comic titles, and the expanded Cross-Media Lounge spotlighting innovative global projects.
Across forums and seminars, international experts explored topics such as AI in education, inclusive storytelling, and global reading promotion, further strengthening CCBF’s role as a hub for cultural exchange. For ARPress, participating in this event deepened our connections across the Asia-Pacific region, enabled meaningful engagement with authors and illustrators worldwide, and affirmed our commitment to stories that transcend borders. As we welcomed partners and book lovers to our booth, we left inspired to continue nurturing global collaboration and advancing imaginative, empathetic, and diverse storytelling for young readers.
A few books were only featured in this globally reached book fair. One of the masterpieces featured is The Spare (Part 3) by Marsha May Fairchild Sumpter.Part 1 and Part 2 of this book are just to give a glimpse into life on the farm when the author was growing up and carry you through the trials and tribulations encountered along the way. In many ways, her story is very insignificant because she realized there are many people out there who encountered way more difficulties and survived them. Each and every person has a story to tell, and it is unfortunate they don’t write about it and let others know what it is like to be a survivor.
Author Marsha May Fairchild Sumpter was born and raised on a working ranch twenty-eight miles north of Philip, South Dakota. As young people, they worked hard and played hard, and events that occurred caused considerable pain to her both mentally and physically. Her choices were not the best, and at seventeen, she was very much on her own. The saying “I was the only hell my mother ever raised” was probably very accurate. She writes this to tell you what it was like growing up and to let others know their choices are important to their future.
She has had many life experiences, both good and bad, over the years. Growing up in the 1940s, every farmer/rancher in South Dakota was dirt poor, trying to produce a crop when there was no rain, or the grasshoppers took over or hail came and wiped out all. The hard work left its mark on this young person. It was always the next year’s country. Did she want to live and work at this all her life? That wasn’t a question that she asked herself, but she stayed away from that lifestyle at an early age.
After marriage, at a young age, it was “you made your bed, lie in it,” and she was destined to finish high school and care for a baby before knowing anything about babies other than lambs, calves, and pigs. Poverty was a way of life for this young couple, scrimping to make ends meet. Work consisted of being a bus driver at age eighteen, a short-order cook and finally going on to get more education and work in offices.
The Spare (Part 3) presents the major move of the family back to the family farm in 1975, which was like a marriage, years of compromise and commitment but sticking with it through the good and the bad. After all, they had made a decision to save the family farm. After the death of the dad, the brothers created a very hostile environment, and Bill and the author were evicted as they took over with their majority ownership and sold the farm.
This book was displayed at the 2024 and 2025 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books (LATFOB) – Book Gallery. LATFOB is one of the world’s most significant literary gatherings. It has been held every year since 1996 with the goal of bringing together the people who create books and the people who love to read them. It is attended by more than 550 authors, celebrities, storytellers, and hundreds of exhibitors.
Most recently, the book was featured at the 2025 Beijing International Book Fair (BIBF). The 31st edition of BIBF, held from June 18 to 22, 2025, unfolded as a vibrant tapestry of literary innovation, cultural exchange, and academic collaboration. Hosted at the China National Convention Center, this year’s fair showcased over 400,000 titles and introduced groundbreaking initiatives that highlighted the evolving landscape of global publishing. Spanning 50,000 square meters, BIBF 2025 featured more than 1,700 exhibitors from 80 countries, a significant increase from previous years. Notably, first-time participants from Bangladesh, Chile, Ethiopia, and Jamaica brought fresh perspectives to the fair’s diverse representation. The event attracted approximately 300,000 visitors on the first day alone, reflecting the growing global interest in literature and publishing.
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