By Connor Hart

Shares of Scholastic climbed after the children's-book publisher narrowed its loss and reported higher revenue in its fiscal third quarter, boosted by strong sales at school book fairs and new book launches.

The stock rose 13%, to $21.33, midday Friday. Shares, on pace for their largest percent increase since July 2022, are up 7.7% in the past three months, though they are down 45% in the past year.

The New York company after the bell Thursday posted a loss of $3.6 million, or 13 cents a share, for its three months ended Feb. 28, compared with a loss of $26.5 million, or 91 cents a share, a year earlier.

On an adjusted basis, Scholastic notched a loss of 5 cents a share.

Quarterly sales increased 4%, to $335.4 million.

Chief Executive Peter Warwick said the narrower loss and higher revenue came despite increasing pressure on family and school spending on books and educational materials.

Sales across the company's Children's Book Publishing and Distribution segment rose 5%, to $203.3 million, boosted by higher book-fair and book-club revenues. The gain was offset by its Education Solutions unit, where revenue fell 16%, to $57.2 million, hurt by continuing headwinds in the supplemental curriculum market, the company said.

For its fiscal 2025, Scholastic now expects what it called modest full-year revenue growth, compared with a prior outlook that saw sales up 4% to 6% from last year.

The new outlook is based on lower spending among consumers in the recent quarter, which is expected to continue through the remainder of the company's fiscal year, Warwick said.

Write to Connor Hart at connor.hart@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 21, 2025 11:38 ET (15:38 GMT)

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