I am challenged by the Scholastic Book Fairs my daughter’s school participates in. Firstly, I am challenged that they sell new books that feature licensed characters, encourage consumerism, and apparently take payments to promote coal without mentioning how coal harms the environment and humans. (see NY times article here).

Admittedly, I remember my first Scholastic book. It was Helen Keller. I remember circling the books I wanted, being able to choose only one, and proudly receiving my order in class. Not every person in my class got books — it made me feel special. When my oldest daughter came home with her first book order sheet, I was nostalgic. The marketing worked. I bought her books.

Now, on parent-teacher interview days the school hosts a Scholastic Book Sale. The children get to visit the sale with their class sometime in the week, and create a wish list.

Fluffy Licensed Character Books

I never wish to discourage children from reading, but I believe it is harmful to sell fluff books to kids. For example, imagine a little girl who is really into a licensed character — let’s make one up — “puff-puff the dog.”

Puff-Puff the dog is a successful children’s show that this child loves to watch. She attends the book sale and sees the Puff-Puff the dog book. Her mother is happy she is excited about a book and eagerly buys them all. They take the book home and while the pictures of Puff-Puff are colorful and cute, nothing really happens in the story and it lacks heart. The book has let down the child. Do you think she’ll be excited to be a reader? Maybe, if she is exposed to other books with heart. But probably not if all the books she gets are fluff stories.

Book Fairs: new vs. used

Scholastic book fairs are done by schools because it is easy. They provide you with all the marketing, the books and a guide on setting up the room. I love when things are simplified — and many parents are overworked and choose the path of least resistance.

I’ve been thinking about what you get when you host a book fair using new books or using old, donated books. Here’s what I came up. Feel free to think about or add pros and cons to either list.

New Books

• You do not get a book fair that is unique to your school

• You raise money for your school

• It is easy to set up and doesn’t require a lot of PAG or class time.

• You do not provide a learning opportunity for the students

• You get an opportunity to teach children that *new* is better

• You get an opportunity to ingrain the Scholastic brand into your child’s head

• You get an opportunity to have your child feel left out of they don’t buy a new book

• You get new books without the inconvenience of going to a real bookstore

Used Books

• Help children to become philanthropists (through donating their books)

• Teach children how to organize systems (one class can be in charge of sorting the books into genre)

• You raise money for your school

• You are asking the teacher to take class time so all students are involved in the sale

• Takes more time and human resources to plan

• Give children a real math experience – by making them responsible for pricing and cashier roles

• Give children the opportunity of creating their own marketing plan for the sale

• Reuse old materials and show the value in this

• Use less of the Earth’s resources

Which do you want?

** If you would like a guide on hosting a used book sale at your school — sign up for my newsletter and I’ll send it to you next week. Ironically, Scholastic also offers a guide on hosting a used book sale.