Another alternative to the Scholastic book fair
I wanted to draw your attention to this comment from Mom Librarian on my post on alternatives to a Scholastic book fair, excerpted here:
For the past 8 years, I’ve been Librarian for our children’s private school, and we’ve done Scholastic fairs every fall. . . . Our entire Library budget comes from our Book Fairs, so it’s not an option not to have them.
Here’s the deal. As for the Scholastic, they have always been really nice and extremely concerned and responsive to our needs as far as their distribution strategy allows. I have explained that we don’t want all the licensed characters and cartoon junk, we are trying to promote literacy with well-written books. . . . They always attempt to send what I ask for, but the truth is their warehouse people are not trained in children’s literature, they are packing widgets. They send 8 cases, I pull everything I don’t like and store it in two of them, show the other 6. Call it censorship, call it whatever you like, but that’s the way we do it. . . . Scholastic knows I do it. It is a matter of letting me sell what the parents at our school are willing to buy, and its not cartoon junk.
The really sad thing, to me, is that Scholastic has an amazing network, great people, a massive system already in place, and nearly unlimited capacity to do great things, but in the past 8 years, they have discontinued carrying nearly every kids series considered wholesome classics by most librarians. . . .
Back to square one. As for Fall, we’ll keep struggling on with Scholastic till something more tailored to our needs comes along. But for the stuff I won’t sell, I just say no.
Thanks, Mom Librarian, for sharing your strategy. Frankly, I didn’t know this was even possible. More importantly, however, this is a call to Scholastic to give customers what they want.
February 5th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Did you realize that when kids read that “cartoon junk” that they are reading and enjoying it? Which is the ultimate key to getting kids to read and want to read and continue to read!!! It amazes me that some librarians would keep a child from reading just because of their own personal feelings toward a book – in the case where it does not contain content that is not appropriate for the level of the child reading it.
February 5th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Book Lover, I’ve heard that argument before. My question to you is, don’t you think there are other options available? Is “cartoon junk” really the only thing that some kids will read? I’d love to hear what other librarians/teachers/parents think, too.
February 5th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
The problem with Scholastic is that they don’t just send reading material – it’s toys and “packs” and “clubs” and all sorts of other things designed to promote branded merchandise. Here, they are sold through public schools – so we have our State primary school system, which is otherwise quite free of corporate influence (no fast food, no vending machines, etc), pushing Disney Disney Disney down our kids’ throats. It’s a manufactured “need”, and I don’t think it’s appropriate for that to be whipped up during school time.
I should add here that I don’t have a problem with high-quality highly-illustrated books, graphic novels, sometimes-maligned franchises like Harry Potter, etc. These can be great ways to get kids reading. But the junky Bratz and Transformers and Wall-E stuff don’t seem to pan out that way, here. When we do cave and get something of that nature, my son is interested only for a few minutes, then it gets discarded and never picked up again. With higher quality reading matter, they hold his interest for reading and re-reading many times.
If it was the occasional branded book or graphic novel I wouldn’t have such a problem with it, but it seems to me even in the two short years we’ve been involved with Scholastic that the over-the-top branding is getting worse and worse, such that it’s pushing out other options. I’d like to support the school by doing our book buying through Scholastic, but nowadays we just flip through the catalogues now looking for some decent reading, and usually only find one or two items that we think are worth buying.
February 7th, 2009 at 12:37 am
Have you considered using a vendor besides Scholastic? I do book fairs for international schools in Asia and they have loved the fact that they do not have to use just Scholastic (we supply the a whole spectrum of titles and publishers). The PTA also gets cash instead of vouchers as their “cut”.
Contact me at chris@whatthebook.com if you would like to discuss a few options.
February 27th, 2009 at 10:20 am
I think it is irresponisble for a library to withold the material that children want to read and what gets them excited to read, even if it is “cartoon junk”. Yes, some censorship is neccessary when we are in children’s libraries, but librarians need to pick their battles. It is up to the library to promote literacy and intellectual freedom while censorship from “cartoon junk” should be left up to the parents and the child.
As far as fundraising goes, kids love those darn erasers at the Book Fairs… The library earns money to expand its collection… If they want an eraser, let them buy it. What I’ve found to be helpful is allowing students to make a wish list where they write down a few books they want during a Book Fair Walk Thru… They come back a few days later with their money to buy the books and then they can look at the other stuff offered at the book fair.
March 11th, 2009 at 8:07 am
Is it also irresponsible for a company such as Scholastic to continue to increase the amount of books with junk attached or regurgitated formula character books (seriously – read some of the character series. They’re all the same except the character is playing a slightly different role in each) at the cost of other books that generally incorporate morals, stimulate the imagination with unusual storylines or take the child to a different culture? Children like flashy things. Would it be irresponsible of a cafeteria that had the choice between serving a side salad or serving a side of potato chips and a trinket specially chosen to grab kids’ interest? You can argue that potato chips are not nutritious and salad is so this is not related, but the issue is not typical literary character books, such as Clifford or Curious George, the issue is books of non-literary characters, where the book is just part of the broader merchandise spectrum and the impact it has on the child’s early consumer development. I think we all know how important this is, especially lately.
March 13th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
I just wrapped up our Spring Fair… 2 hours ago. We raised $2K (in cash – we’re not limited for our library AND pulled $700 of books straight of the shelves to be added to the school library. Given the current state of our economy and the wholesale slashing going on by the county, this funding is crucial.
I’m a parent volunteer and I go back and forth on the tv/movie based books. My son has been slow to learn to read and frankly I’m thrilled to see him read a Cars book but I’m also careful to read better stories to him.
We edit the offerings to remove most of the toys. We do leave out art/science activity items. We’re leaning toward only offering non-book items at our Fall Fair, and only on the night that parents shop with their kids so they can decide. For our spring Fair, we’ll probably not offer any thing but books and art/science activities.
We also honor ANY note sent in by a parent regarding how kids should spend the money they send in. In fact, if a child comes in with money but no note, we (the volunteer moms) pretty much talk them out of any junk in favor of a book.
Staff and volunteers have total control over what gets sold. What’s more – parents get to decide whether or not to send their kids with money. Don’t like it? Don’t sell it and don’t buy it.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
I have been hosting book fairs at our school for over 20 years. We have used sveral different vendors, including private local book stores and Christian Book Clubs. Scholastic is the best in terms of selection, quality, and service. Yes, there is a lot of “junk”. We have students “preview” the fair and make a list of items they wish to purchase. During the preview I do not display any of what I call “toys”: pencils, erasers, stickers etc. In my opinion, they are grossly overpriced and the quality is poor. We require students under age 10 to have parent approval to make purchases. We host a family event to encourage parents to attend with their children.As far as cartoon books, I don’t have a problem with them. If a book excites interest and the desire to read, I’m all for it.
July 19th, 2009 at 11:09 am
As a former SBF employee, I agree with the original poster. SBF offers very little in the way of good, classic children’s literature and a lot in the way of junk/cartoon character books. There are many, many outstanding children’s books out there, but SBF has turned away from them. I am a former employee for a reason. As a book lover, reader and a hard worker, I was very much disillusioned working for them.
July 19th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Renee, I really hope you’ve shared your story with Campaign for a Commerical-Free Childhood.
August 18th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Consider an Usborne book fair.