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 2) by Marsha May Fairchild Sumpter.Author Marsha May Fairchild Sumpter was born and raised on a working ranch twenty-eight miles north of Philip, South Dakota. As a young person, she worked hard and played hard, and events that occurred caused considerable pain both mentally and physically. Her choices were not always 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 to tell you what it was like growing up and to let others know that 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 and rancher in South Dakota was dirt poor, trying to produce a crop when there was no rain, when the grasshoppers took over, or when hail came and wiped out everything. The hard work left its mark on this young person. It was always about the next year’s crop. Did she want to live and work like that for the rest of her life? That wasn’t a question she asked herself, but she distanced herself from that lifestyle at an early age.
After marrying at a young age, it was a case of “you made your bed, now lie in it.” She was destined to finish high school and care for a baby, despite knowing little about babies, other than lambs, calves, and pigs. Poverty was a way of life for the young couple, scrimping to make ends meet. Her work included being a bus driver at age eighteen, a short-order cook, and eventually pursuing more education to work in offices.
The Spare (Part 2) recounts their marriage, which was given about two weeks to two months to survive. They stood two chances of making it work out, slim and none. But through commitment and stubbornness, they hung in there.
This book was among the books displayed by Author Reputation Press during the 2024 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books (LATFOB) at the University of Southern California on April 20–21, 2024. LATFOB is considered to be one of the world’s most significant literary gatherings. It has been held annually since 1996 with the goal of bringing together the people who create books and the people who love to read them. It was attended by more than 550 authors, celebrities, storytellers, and hundreds of exhibitors. The Los Angeles Times is the country’s largest metropolitan daily newspaper, with more than 40 million unique visitors to latimes.com each month, a Sunday print readership of 1.6 million, and a combined print and online local weekly viewership of 4.4 million. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Times has been covering Southern California for more than 140 years.
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