Opportunity Knox: The New Kid

📖 9 Chapters | 110 Pages | Ages 10–14
By Drew Rozell, Ph.D.
A novel about friendship, trust, and learning to hear yourself.

You've learned to trust your inner GPS.

Now there's a story that teaches young people to do the same — without a single lecture.

Here's the story

Opportunity Knox is the kid everyone goes to. He listens. He notices. Above all, he's decent. Then a new kid, Jason, transfers in from Phoenix: charming, easy with everyone, and a little too interested in Opportunity's friends. His older brother is more jaded, harder to fool — and he sees it before Opportunity does. (His name is Hart Knox. Say it fast for the joke.) Opportunity feels something's off too, and talks himself out of it, because he's a nice kid and wants to be seen that way.

Then comes the video. Jason talks Opportunity into filming it — and even though something feels off, he goes along. By the time it's been twisted into something cruel and it's spreading through the school, the good kid is the one facing a world of trouble. And the part he can't shake isn't the trouble. It's that he felt the warning, and ignored it.

The rest of the story is about what happens next — the apology that costs something, the friendship that holds, and what it actually feels like to come back to yourself after ignoring what you knew deep down all along.

Who this book is for

Ages 10–14 — navigating middle school, shifting friendships, peer pressure, and the growing sense that fitting in sometimes comes at a cost.

The kid adjusting to a new school. The kid who got pulled in the wrong direction by someone who seemed cool. The kid who already felt something was off but couldn't quite explain it yet.

It's clean — nothing a parent needs to screen. And it takes a kid's world seriously: the trouble Opportunity lands in is real, and kids that age know this world.

And if you're the parent or grandparent who already knows how much this matters — you also know a lecture won't land. A story might.

So why did I write it?

Because I had to. That's where inspiration led me — which doesn't mean it didn't have me wondering. I'd never written a book for kids. I had no idea if I could make something a middle schooler would actually find entertaining, let alone relevant to their world. But some funny things happened along the way.

The idea came almost 20 years ago, before I even had kids. The first thing that arrived was the main character's name: Opportunity Knox. Yes, the pun. But the odd name was a nod to the books I loved as a kid — the Encyclopedia Brown mysteries. Mine isn't a mystery. It just carries a few things worth remembering at any age, in a form a kid can actually hold onto.

Then the notes sat. Gathering digital dust for years. Until one of my readers emailed me out of the blue, asking if I'd ever thought about writing for young people. I searched my Gmail — I email myself ideas — and there were my notes from 2008. That was the spark, and it turned out there was enough tinder to catch.

As I was writing, and wondering why, something happened that put my doubts to rest. The story I'd dreamed up was about how fast a kid's life can turn on one thing that gets online. One of my own kids went through almost exactly that. That's when I knew I hadn't made it up so much as tuned into it.

The review that matters

I gave the finished book to my 13-year-old daughter to read.

"That didn't suck."

If you have a teenager, you know that's a rave.

From the world of Decide, Let It Go, and The Very Cool Life Code

For readers who already know my work, these are the same core ideas — trusting what you feel, listening to your inner guidance, alignment — told through the eyes of a 12-year-old for the first time. Many readers have wanted a way to share these ideas with a young person earlier. This book is that bridge.

Formats available

📖 Paperback  📘 Signed Hardcover  📱 Ebook (delivered instantly via BookFunnel)

100% money-back guarantee

If you don't love this book, email drew@drewrozell.com for a full refund. No questions asked.