Featured Titles for Kids: Arlo All Over Again & The Goal of the Game
Arlo All Over Again by Sayuri Stabrowski
Illustrated by Dave Szalay
Published by Free Spirit Publishing
World Rights Available*
Age Range: 4 - 8
A big-city tale about how friendship builds confidence—and the unexpected joys that come from trying new things.
Arlo All Over Again is the sweet and touching story of two boys who become fast friends over the course of two snowy days.
Arlo All Over Again
Portrays a surprising, beautiful friendship between two boys in New York City
Emphasizes themes of optimism, risk taking, trying new things, bravery, and friendship
Includes a note from the author and suggestions to expand on the story’s themes and ideas
This book shows how friendships can help us grow, and it explores the serendipitous ways that city life brings people together.
*DropCap does not represent Spanish Print language rights.
Sayuri Stabrowski is a teacher who has dedicated her career to helping children develop their literacy skills and discover a lifelong love for learning, reading, and writing. After graduating from UC Berkeley, she left her beloved home state of California to become a public-school teacher in New York City. Inspired by the curiosity and creativity of her upper elementary and middle school students, as well as her own kids, Sayuri followed her dream of writing books for children. As a Japanese American writer, educator, and mother, her range of experiences is reflected in her characters and settings. A horse girl, bookworm, and lover of the outdoors, nature, and world travel, Sayuri hopes to bring her stories and perspectives to readers everywhere, because she truly believes that books can change minds, empower young thinkers, and make the world a better place.
Dave Szalay is an award-winning illustrator, designer, and tenured university professor based in Ohio. Dave is a lifelong picture book enthusiast and loves stories of history, culture, fantasy and folklore. Dave received the Portfolio Showcase honor for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and he has been recognized for dozens of other visual arts awards. Dave holds an MFA in Illustration from University of Hartford.
The Goal of the Game by Harvey Araton
Published by Koehler Books
World Rights Available
Age Range: 12 - 17 years
Zane Hamill, known to his family and friends as Z, begins his seventh-grade soccer season on a nationally ranked team that has steadily climbed the competition ladder. But on the morning of his first game, he wakes up with a pit in his stomach that feels like a humongous meatball.
Once coached by his dad, who was seriously injured in a car accident that Z thinks was his fault, he is no longer surrounded by best friends, those who played alongside him since kindergarten. With the team gunning for a tournament in Las Vegas, the stakes are high.
The pressure is on. As a team's best passer, the glue that holds it together, Z struggles with the balance between playing for keeps and playing for fun. Without the guidance of his dad, he must decide what role soccer should play in his life. He must uncover the goal of the game.
Reviews
"Only Harvey Araton could reach this deeply into the souls of a struggling family and a mid-grade travel team to find the power of the beautiful game to hurt and to heal. Before you play or coach or cheer youth soccer, you need to find the goal of the game."—Robert Lipsyte, author of The Contender
"The story of Z and his travel team is one that we can all relate to in our commodified, rankings-obsessed culture that has infected every activity that kids once did for fun. Z reminds us that the decisions we make on the field mirror the ones we make off the field and that the things we all long for-friendship, community, a sense of purpose-happen when we find our joy and stop caring too much about the score."—Miya T. Beck, author of The Pearl Hunter and Through a Clouded Mirror
"Harvey Araton nails all the angles of what it's like in the high-stakes world of elite young athletes, and readers of all ages will recognize themselves somewhere in these pages. It's impossible not to root for Z as he grapples with the question that, if we're being honest, we all should ask ourselves a little more: Why do we play?"—Sam Borden, ESPN World Cup reporter
Harvey Araton is a longtime sports journalist who has written for four New York newspapers, including working twentyfive years at the New York Times, where he wrote the Sports of the Times column. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of nine books. Driving Mr. Yogi was a New York Times bestseller. When the Garden Was Eden was made into an ESPN 30for30 documentary, which he coproduced. Araton was nominated by the Times for the Pulitzer Prize in 1994. He was a media inductee to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017. He graduated from the City University of New York in 1975.
Indie Spotlight from Our Marketplace
Faery Academy of QuillSnap
By Jacqueline Reinig
World Rights Available
Age range: 10 - 12 years
Awards:
International Impact Book Awards 2025 / July Winner, Fantasy Adventure Category
Pinnacle Book Achievement Awards 2025 / Best Books, Fantasy Category
Global Book Awards 2025 / Finalist, Reader's Favorite
Literary Global Independent Author Awards 2025 / Finalist, Action/Adventure Category
Four Seasons Book Awards 2025 / Finalist, Spring Edition 2025
On the Night of the Purple Moon, twelve-year-old Tansy WaterSprite bolts from a grim life in the Human Realm into QuillSnap—the most prestigious faery finishing school in the Seven Realms. Here, first-years (the “Sprouts”) train on butterflies, decode gazing globes, and learn under Headmistress Vivi SparkleBrite and a glittering faculty at the Sea Glass Castle and the Spellatorium. But QuillSnap’s new year opens under a veil of danger: a missing invitation, a swapped satchel, and whispers of a banished teacher—Merkel, once called Tempest—plotting a return.
As Tansy battles imposter syndrome, a mercurial butterfly, and a mean-girl legacy who “knows everything,” she discovers that courage, quick thinking, and true friends (plus a very bossy lady beetle) may be the strongest magic of all. When the Sprouts’ first elixir under the purple moon becomes a race against sabotage, Tansy must outfly, outthink, and out-sparkle the forces set on toppling QuillSnap—before the hourglass runs dry.
Why you should check out this title
Brimming with couture wings, crystalline waterfalls, and clock-ticking peril, Faery Academy of QuillSnap is a luminous school-fantasy where found family, grit, and glitter save the day.
Jacqueline Reinig spins a jewel-toned world of faery academies, butterfly flight, and midnight elixirs in Faery Academy of QuillSnap: Night of the Purple Moon. Inspired by bedtime tales with her granddaughter and by an “Enchanted Forest” of her own making, Reinig channels wonder, warmth, and suspense into a cinematic middle-grade adventure. When she’s not dreaming up sparkles, sea glass castles, or fiendishly clever villains, Reinig delights in stories that celebrate courage, kindness, and the everyday magic of family.
