Grain Valley Publishing
An independent press in Wichita, Kansas.
Two novels about young people at the moment the ground shifts under them. Both are read in classrooms. Both are also performed.
Maggie Vaults Over the Moon
A car crash takes Maggie Steele's brother at harvest time, and the future she'd pictured closes. Life on the family's Kansas wheat farm keeps moving. Maggie doesn't, until she finds the pole vault, a sport that asks for everything she has.
"A fine YA novel about perseverance in sports and in life." — Kirkus Reviews
The Second Edition carries a foreword by Olympic pole vault champion Katerina Stefanidi and chapter discussion questions by Dr. Melissa I. White. Citius Mag named it to its list of 100 books all runners and track fans should read, and called it the only novel its editor knew of about a field event rather than track. Selected for the Wichita Diocese Catholic Schools Battle of the Books. Narrated by Audie Award-winning Tavia Gilbert.
Ages 10 and up, grades 5-8. No profanity or sexual content.
The Real Education of TJ Crowley
Wichita, 1968, the summer after Dr. King was killed. A line runs through the city, and it runs one street from thirteen-year-old TJ Crowley's house. When the new Fair Housing law brings a Black doctor's family onto his block, everything TJ thought he knew about his neighbors, his family, and himself comes apart.
The full-cast audio drama, adapted by Grant Overstake and producer-director May Wuthrich, features fifteen actors and the gospel and soul of the ARISE Ensemble. It won the 2025 Audie Award for Young Adult and an AudioFile Earphones Award.
Available as a novel, an audio drama, and a word-for-word scriptbook for reading alongside the production.
About Grain Valley Publishing
Grain Valley Publishing is an independent press in Wichita, Kansas. We publish a small number of books and stay with them for a long time. We also produce audio editions that give them a second life for listeners. Our full-cast audio drama of The Real Education of TJ Crowley won the 2025 Audie Award.
Through BookLab™, our publishing-services arm, we help other independent publishers get their books in front of the readers, teachers, and librarians already looking for them. Learn more about BookLab™
We are a bridge publisher, at home in the public square and in the life of faith. Our books are read in Catholic schools and public schools, on teams, in classrooms, and at kitchen tables.
We are a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers. What we believe is set out here.
