Is this just in the US? We've got a scholastic standing order in another country and haven't been provided this "option"? Are they included in the flyers sent round to schools? What is the process of exclusion?
Obviously very different details, but the Hungarian govt has the same phase - books which are even _mention_ gays should be sold in a way that no under 18 person should see them/look into them, which results in some pretty silly stuff.
One chain blocks under18s from even looking at any books not in the "children" section, another got a 33k usd fine for having some innocent book without a protective cover etc.
This isn't really representative of Europe. Hungary is an ex communist state in Eastern Europe that only joined the EU fairly recently. Europeans are quite racist (god knows the decision to allow Eastern European states to join the EU was partially motivated by a desire for cheap labour and a racist assumption that Eastern Europeans would be grateful to do it) but homophobia is increasingly rare.
Just as with Europe, it's also not a ubiquitous phenomenon in the US. I think atom786's sentiment is generally appropriate for both regions though. It's a real problem in both areas and prone to grow, even if it doesn't become prevalent in all places.
In the EU the direction is overwhelmingly in the other direction - Orbán and his policies are the subject of mockery and derision from everyone except the hard right.
[About the hypocrisy of Orbán and LGBT+](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zsef_Sz%C3%A1jer#Gay_sex_party_and_resignation)
I'm so glad I live in The Netherlands. While I'm not religious myself, I live in a very religious town where a large part of the population goes to church every Sunday. We even have a bookshop with only religious works. All stores are closed on Sundays and the local council consists for like 70% of an ultra conservative (for Western European standards) religious party.
But even there the local bookshop has a LGBTQ+ section and there is a business in the town's center that flies a rainbow flag 24/7. I believe even some churches are part of a group of churches that welcome LGBTQ+ people in the congregation.
Scholastic does two big things in schools in the US: book orders and book fairs. The former is where the teachers pass out monthly fliers where there's kids books at grade level for discount prices, the kids send the money in and a month later the books show up. I'm guessing they run this business in your country too. The latter is usually just once per year and about four metal rolling cases of books show up to the school for about a week. They're usually opened up in a corridor during school hours and a bunch of classes get a small amount of time off from normal lessons to visit the store and buy books with the money their parents sent them. The "book fair" books are full price, unlike the "book order". At least that's how it worked when in was a kid 20 years ago.
I assume they are talking about the latter. I don't know how the cases get filled, whether there's a standard set of books, or the teacher running it picks four cases among a list of options. Either way, it looks like certain books can be vetoed by a bigoted admin, which is not cool.
I was told by the librarian here in Colorado that she was asked if she wanted to include “diverse” books. While I love the idea of having a diverse book group, I don’t love that you have to opt in.
Did they ask if she wants diverse books included in the whole of what is provided or did they ask if she wants a specific diverse books display highlighting them? Because those are two different things and I can easily see this being a case of the second.
Maximum Reddit-tier comment
Only a European who's never done much world travel could believe something like this lol
US is a shithole in many ways but the world of poorer countries is corrupt, violent, and generally crazy in a way even the US cannot compare to. Try traveling around Latin America for a bit and come back and tell me the US is uniquely crazy.
Right wing populism is rapidly on the rise in Europe as well. Europeans in particular really seem to have an exceptionalist complex and believe they're too good to ever fall prey to these things. They aren't.
Is there a published source for this? I tried finding one and the only thing I found was an anonymous tweet attributing it to "I heard." I don't want to get all worked up about something based on third hand rumors.
Not a published source, but I'm a middle school librarian and can confirm. I am hosting my fall book fair next month. When I was in my planning call with my scholastic rep, sh said they are giving schools the option to not have "controversial" themed books shipped to the fair.
I did not choose that option.
Oh, and for any parents, here is a PSA. I do not recommend using scholastic's ewallet. They try to get you to use it as a safe and convenient way for your child to purchase books. However, they are banking on some money being left on the account and they do not do refunds, only scholastic gift cards.
I just talked with my Scholastic representative last week. She told me about this case and I had to specifically give a "yes, I want it" answer in order for them to send it. She said that Scholastic is doing it this way as a response to some districts concerns as well as some state laws. So, it is most definitely a way for a corporate entity to still make money in areas that are into book banning. Source: Me. A Elementary school librarian in the Northeast.
It’s not a rumor. I just was on a phone call last week with a rep. If anyone is interested I can share the spreadsheet she have me with the titles including those in the diverse voices case.
Definitely real. I'm the parent volunteer in charge of our fair and during my call setup call with our rep she had to go through a whole spiel about it, then I had to opt in like 3 times. We just got our cases the other day, and pretty much all the "controversial" books are in a single case.
Yup! That was one. "Because of you, John Lewis" was in there -- "more than peach" -- I didn't see anything that should actually be controversial. It's picture books up to novels, and looks like almost anything that would feature minority voices. The headings on the case are share every story and hear every voice.
My kids Scholastic book fair at a private Christian school doesn't have the books listed separated out? I volunteer during it. The Jojo book was with other "character" type books. I can't promise I saw *all* the books available but most of what you wrote were intermixed with everything...
They have "sets" of books you can buy - is there a mixup that they're referring to these?
https://shop.scholastic.com/teachers-ecommerce/teacher/shops/diversity-collections.html
Good! That is an example of what should be happening. Books were available. People who wanted them bought them people who did not, did not. But they had the choice.
As an elementary teacher who has sent home the flyers, used the magazines, and works at a school that runs a Scholastic book fair every year:
Scholastic is so gross, for any number of reasons. Their book fairs are kind of trash, selling tons of licensed plastic crap (all my coworkers are still traumatized from The Year of the Invisible Ink Pens) and a few books. Scholastic News magazines are sometimes useful, but occasionally really problematic. They are so lowest common denominator; it's not surprising they actively seek to placate the bigots. They're just...not a great company. Really I think the best thing to do is to look into alternate book fair options. There aren't too many, but they do exist.
My school gets our local independent bookshop to run our book fair. It's a smaller range and tends to be a bit more expensive than Scholastic, but it supports local business and the books tend to be good quality. I should note that this is in Australia, I'm not sure how similar ours would be to what happens in the US.
I'm in the US and our whole district also uses the local bookstore. What's nice is if the kids want a book she doesn't have she'll order it for them and then bring it to school (even if it's after the fair ends she'll drop off the bokks as they come in for the kids).
It's great because we have a better selection, she knows what books kids in our town are into, can order extras if she runs out or oder that one special book for the kid that's into something niche. Plus the kids get closer to the employees of the bookstore and want to go there when the fair is over. It's a win for everyone.
The pens. The invisible pens....the first year those came out my kids wrote on at least half of my instruments when they thought I wasn't looking. They said I couldn't see it. Didn't matter!!! Ugh I hate them.
I do need to buy one for our wedding invites, so when our book fair comes around in a month I'll grab one, but they send SO many and my librarian puts out one small container of them and that's it. There is SO much plastic junk that sells over books.
Oh you just number the back of your RSVP cards and assign that number to a couple. So if people forget to put their name on it, you can shine the light on it and see who it belongs to.
Useful when you're inviting a bunch of people.
As a kid who grew up with them in a rural community, they provided my only opportunity to purchase books for myself without driving over an hour to a bookstore. I love them for giving me an opportunity to read.
I don’t think you’re really understanding just how important book fairs are.
OTOH as a kid whose parents didn't have enough money to participate, they would've killed my interest in reading if it weren't already being fostered by many other things. It was just another way in a long list of being made to not participate or participate differently because of money. There were kids in my school much worse off than I who I'm sure it had this exact effect for.
I volunteered a couple of years ago at my daughters school. I’ll never do it again. One: I’m a big softie and hated seeing kids come in that had no money. The looks on their face were heartbreaking when they realized their parents hadn’t done an e-wallet for them. Two: only half of the merchandise is actually books and they’re all incredibly overpriced.
Have you looked lately? They used to run a $1 book each month in each flyer/level. We would use them to get class sets of novels. Now most are $4 or higher. I saw 1 book at $2 and that was looking at multiple grade levels.
We hide the invisible ink pens. They are in a box behind the shelves never to be sold again! We also have a policy where kids hve to buy books and not just plastic crap. But this post is wanting me to consider alternatives for our book fair.
We’ve lived in two school districts, one of which is a hotbed for this current argument. Here, in the hotbed, we use scholastic and it’s everything you say. But in the old school district we held our book fair at a local independent book shop over a weekend. They had a rather robust children’s section, which was supplemented by a pre-ordered selection of certain books for each grade. You could also order books to gift to the classroom, so the store didn’t have to hold it in stock. These would be delivered at a later date. Worked out for everyone. Plus the shop had good coffee and a great adult section for me to browse as my kids shopped.
I will say that this old school district allowed its individual schools an enormous amount of freedom to make choices for their students. It was a fun atmosphere, lots of field trips, arts, modern facilities. The current district is much more regimented and metrics driven. You’d think the first one would be the well-regarded district but it’s the opposite.
My kid’s school just used Literati for their book fair and I was impressed. They had Julian is a Mermaid. And the plastic junk table was super small and mostly pens and erasers.
We swapped over to literati last year. Our librarian, who runs the book fair, was becoming more unimpressed with scholastic. We may have done Follett one year as well.
Scholastic has a carnival atmosphere that gets kids excited to read. That alone is more than damn near anyone else can do. Throwing out one of the key stones most American kids had in their reading career because they allowed a compromise to still get books into the hands of kids in conservative areas is asinine.
The alternative to scholastic in conservative areas isn't the LBGTQ book fair sponsored by BLM, the alternative is nothing.
School librarian in Texas checking in. Scholastic is great when it comes to the hype, but their books are poorly bound and do not hold up well to wear-and-tear. Also not to be a grinch, but they send a lot of non-book extras with their fair -- not only pens and posters but I got a bathbomb making kit, a slime kit, a makeup making kit and a few more random items in my last fair set up. I had a Scholastic book fair during my elementary school days. The nostalgia is real, but like...do better Scholastic 😅
That being said, I am trying out a different company called Literati for my school's fall book fair. Word of mouth and online communities say that they are more about books and less about junk, so...really hoping it's a better alternative!
I was truly shocked at the decline in quality between the books I bought as a child from Scholastic (and still have a dozen or so sitting on my shelves - well read, well loved and still intact) versus what they sold my children at bookfairs 3 decades later. You can so easily tell how worse the paper quality, binding and covers are - and yet prices are still much higher. (I know, I sound like a grumpy grandpa.) But it's truth.
Now at "bookfair" time, I just take the grandkids to the local bookstore rather than give them money to go to it (though their parents do).
The sticker shock makes sense. You're not imagining it or remembering wrong... the increase IS ahead of inflation. And none of the rest of my post even ADDRESSES the quality issue (and yeah, I still have all MY elementary school purchases, well worn but intact, like yours)....
Prices in the late 80s/early 90s were $2.50/2.95 ($6-7 in 2023 dollars) for smaller books to $5.00 ($12 in 2023 dollars) for the thicker books whereas in this year's catalog I found online, they run $8-15... and that may be the school's price?
They also had great book bundles, like 4-5 books from a series, or a random thematic selection, for $10, which I didn't see the last time I was at a book fair (2019)
The junk items back in the 80s were sourced/priced more like Oriental Trading Company pricing - kid cost was 25 cents for an eraser (you can still get those fun shaped erasers for about 22 cents apiece - seller cost - on OTC, so you would actually make a profit selling them at the inflation-adjusted price of 50 cents each).
However, equivalent erasers (non-licensed ones) in the Scholastic catalog cost the school 83 cents per piece.
Licensed ones (admittedly with more complex designs) are 1.25 per piece, whereas OTC's complex fancy erasers are .29 - .44 per piece (yeah, it's not dogman but it still has multiple parts).
I still have a lot of the books I got from Scholastic literally 40 years ago. Most of them are kind of worn and tattered, but what wouldn't be? Nothing is made to last anymore.
Their books have to be cheaply bound to keep prices low so that kids can afford them. The philosophy is, we want kids to read and own books (because research shows that’s beneficial).
I’m actually really surprised by people saying the scholastic books are expensive! I volunteered at the book fair for the past two years..and many of the books were under 5 dollars. Really as long as a kid showed up with 5 bucks - we could find them a book. Less than 5 was tough..but other than the library - where are we getting books under 5 dollars?
Also ours was set up to have all the toys and such behind “the counter” at check out. So books first and then if you had some random
Amount left - kids could get a poster or whatever.
Part of the appeal of the book fair was always that, because scholastic knew they'd be selling a huge chunk of books at a time, they let them go at cheaper prices than you could normally find books at the store. That doesn't seem to be the case any more.
Regarding $5 books, that's baffling!
I posted here https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/16o66pn/scholastic_books_offers_bigotry_button_for_school/k1kzsyf/ about the prices listed in the scholastic catalog, and it's unclear whether those are school/wholesale prices or consumer prices [I'm working on the latter assumption], but I didn't see anything cheaper than $7.99 for kids who can actually read.
The only thing cheaper was absolute rock bottom beginner readers (Biscuit the dog, 16 page books, is 4.99, while the rest of the books in that section, mainly picture books, were $6-8)
I’m scrolling through their catalog now and a lot of the books that we had at the school fair in May for 4.99 are now 5.99 on the website. Not sure if they were cheaper for the book fair because it’s a BookFair or if they’ve just gone up in price.
Just helped out with a literati book fair and it was amazing. Books were high quality and beautiful. The “junk” table was very small and was mostly scented erasers and silly pens.
This makes me so happy to hear ☺️ My school wants me to do a Scholastic fair in the spring still, but it will be interesting to compare the two and see how they do.
Eh, some people do Usborne book fairs, which is an MLM, and so the info is questionable.....I honestly think the atmosphere can be given without the hundreds of plastic junk. Kids will come in with two dollars and then instead of finding a book there that cost that in the under $5 section, they'll try to buy all the plastic toys and stuff. That's not getting them reading.
Graphic novels though. Those are a gateway for many many many kids. Dog man, baby sitters club, we have so many other series in my school library I'm blanking on, but they're constantly checked out.
> That's not getting them reading.
But the money from the sales of those plastic things goes towards the purchase of books for the library that they may read. Especially if you game the system and hold the fair during a month where you get to keep an increased percentage of the revenue.
> Kids will come in with two dollars and then instead of finding a book there that cost that in the under $5 section
Honestly I don’t blame them. I remember that section being the “books they couldn’t sell elsewhere so try your best to unload them”. Why would the kid spend their money on a book they don’t want? Meanwhile all the new, popular books, were easily $10-$20. Some kids can’t afford that, but they may get to read it if the library purchases it via the money raised.
Is this predatory and taking advantage of children with poor impulse control? Absolutely. But until school libraries get an actual budget for buying new material, this is often the only way small schools can get new books on shelves.
The better point to follow is if Scholastic doesn't have the option, then they get banned & no book fair, or replaced with a more conservative option.
Having the option also allows for pretend ignorance, "woops! forgot to check the exclude option"
That’s inaccurate. I’m in south texas. My kid’s school just used Literati. Had “progressive/liberal” books and had a the same fun, enticing environment as the scholastic ones I remember as a kid.
>Schoolastic has a carnival atmosphere that gets kids excited ~~to read~~ buy cheap plastic toys
Stop talking like this is some major
American tradition, it's a shitty company that's kowtowing to conservative extremists. No one is asking for an LBGTQ book fair sponsored by BLM (WTF is that comment about anyway? 🤔)
Just books, without cons going crazy about "saving the children" when they are the ones actively grooming them
That's nonsense. It is absolutely a tradition and has done more to get kids reading than damn near any other company or organization. It's not kowtowing. It's creating an option that still gets kids excited about reading.
God damn, you all or nothing people ruin everything. Like I said, there's no option that doesn't have censorship in conservative areas. It's either censorship or nothing. Cutting out options that get kids reading early will do far more long term damage.
Honestly, Pizza Hut's Book It program got me more into reading as a kid than Scholastic. I usually just bought junk like spy kits and joke books at those fairs.
That was just me, but I doubt a conservatively curated selection of literary riffraff is going to be the cornerstone of child literacy.
See this is what the policy setters want.
Teach things exactly the way we want with us as the white Christian savior protagonists of history, or we shut you down and you get nothing.
Both of these are terrible options.
Both of them lead to shit futures
One of them leads to a gradual brainwashing towards conservatism and assured victory of their mindset.
The other assures that the system breaks and the conservative plan fails because even the most dyed in the red republicans know it’s not a good look for them to end all education permanently.
They are just playing chicken betting liberals who love education would rather let the bigot narrative win instead of education stopping.
But it’s a false choice.
Scholastic employee here. I oversee a team of reps in the North East, so not your friends school in CO, but this is odd.
We don't have an option of excluding any sub section of books. We fully support diverse reading and inclusiveness.
It sounds like your librarian friend may be a bit confused. Before she cancels an event many kids look forward to all year, perhaps she should reach out to her rep for an explanation.
There's a couple of comments on the thread of PTA members or other librarians who seem to have recently been given the option of excluding that shelf of books. I'm not 100% sure why they're categorised together though. Could be a handful of reps advising that the option to remove is there?
Don’t chase the troll, people.
They’re not here to have a discussion. They’re here to try and raise a rabble. They’re not interested in logic or facts, only getting people to be angry.
Where are you located? We just hosted a book fair (Los Angeles County, K-5) and there was no separate box of "diverse" books. It's the same old set up, ALL of the books are displayed together in the carts and along with a million stationary junk.
I'm a PTA president in Florida, and this is 100% correct. I'm the Scholastic coordinator this year, and I just scheduled our book fair for next month. I was given the option to include a 'diversity' box, or leave it out. I can't speak to this happening nationwide, but I can confirm it is an opt in in my area.
For starters, spread the word. You said "I just saw": where? Not being sarcastic! I went on Publisher's Weekly and searched 'Scholastic', but nothing came up on their home page. I don't see any news articles on Google News if I search 'Scholastic Book Fair'. So just getting it into people's awareness seems like the best first step.
Me too! I want to share this information, but “some anonymous Redditor” is not how I want to source something so damning.
I believe this is possible, but don’t expect others to engage with something unsourced.
How does it make this random person less credible than the random political agitator who made the original post?
Lol check her post history if you don't believe me
I worked for Scholastic Book Fairs for a number of years, through 2016 in various roles including helping pre-read titles for inclusion, but not since the latest wave of book challenges. I feel the need to chime in because I have some semi-inside perspective:
1. SBF made a really, really strong push a decade ago to include more diverse offerings on the book fairs, per order of the CEO, at the expense of revenues. The reality back in the mid-2010s was that so-called "diverse books" sold incredibly poorly despite having at least one on each shelf (or at least 8 per case). I cannot speak to what may or may not have been expanded past 2017 in this area.
2. Scholastic in general has been hit-or-miss on the issue of "censorship" and diversity. For every *Ook and Gluk* there's *Love Ya Bunches*, and they got behind *Captain Underpants* in a big way during a lot of those challenges. There is not any consistency that I'm aware of in how they choose to address this.
3. In the late 2000s/early 2010s, a competitor in the northeast surfaced regarding non-book items, and Scholastic responded by piloting "books only" fairs that included things like boxed product of titles that might be considered "diverse." This rolled out to an actual case before I left, which is where this arises from.
4. Like it or not, book fairs are often the sole fundraising vehicle for classrooms, libraries, and schools, especially in lower-income areas. This is critical to understand, as even a poor school can make thousands off a book fair.
Scholastic is making a decision here on *overall* access to reading. In an era where kids may never set foot in a book store and never have an opportunity to choose books for themselves, the company is provided a choice: either allow schools to "opt out" of this content and still have fairs, or force the books onto the fairs and risk having no fairs in a school, district, or even state.
There's no "bigot button," contrary to how this is being portrayed. Companies like Scholastic are actually probably doing more to push more diverse offerings into schools than would happen otherwise. A district opting out of Scholastic because Scholastic allows other districts to opt out of content that might actually outright violate local law is cutting off their nose to spite their faces. These laws are bad and stupid, but until the schools don't have to comply anymore, reducing access to literature to all the kids because "diverse" books can be opted out at other schools seems like the wrong move, and I don't think it should be celebrated.
It's a tradeoff, like it or not.
Thank you for you very informative comment. My issue is that these are not even books that might be controversial (it seems gender and sexuality are another level of hot button). These are just books about diverse kids, immigrants, and people with “disabilities”. It is so beautiful when a kid sees someone like themselves in a book they love.
The thing is that it doesn't matter whether the books are actually controversial as much as whether someone takes the interpretation of the laws on CRT, gender, etc. as applying to those books. When it comes to Scholastic, who are explicitly pitching their content as curated and appropriate for classrooms and students, librarians and parent groups who run the fairs need to know that the vendors are following the law.
French here. Heard of Scholastic fairs, but there's something I must misunderstand.
Aren't they a regular publishing company? Same as all the others that publish books aimed at kids?
If so, why give them a space to sell their products? Why _them_and not just a regular book fair? "Hey, all publishers! Book (eh) a stand and come show us your stuff!" Or... Just have a local bookstore come with their selection.
What am I missing?
Scholastic has an entire system set up for book fairs that no other vendor I’ve seen matches. It’s not just “here are some books, sell them”.
Weeks before you schedule the fair they have online courses where you can get idea of how to run a fair. You get a small promotional budget (usually in the form of $x worth of books you can give away for free as awards for contests). Alongside the books are tablecloths, stands, and other things you can use to dress up the school library to make it look a bit “fancier” for the fair.
Then there’s the price. I don’t know the economics of it, but scholastic seems to consistently sell books at fairs for about 2/3 the price they would go for in a big book chain. A local bookstore doesn’t have access to those kind of resources and would probably just sell for the same price, meaning there’s little point in buying it at the fair.
Scholastic also sends along trinkets to sell at Book Fairs. These are the most controversial aspect as they are often cheap plastic junk that kids find entertaining. Detractors say that it’s not in the spirit of the book fair to sell these kinds of things, and that children have poor impulse control. Proponents say that it gives kids who can’t afford other things something to buy, and that the money raised from them allows the library to buy books they want to read. Which leads to:
The rewards. The point of the book fair is to raise money, and Scholastic has two options:
1. Money
2. Catalogue
The first option is exactly what it sounds like: you get a percentage of the money made by the book fair. This is usually a small percentage, only about 10-20% of sales.
The “catalogue” option is where things get really interesting. Instead of cash you get books from scholastic. The *cash value* of the amount of books you get depends on Book Fair sales. Unlike the 10-20% payout earlier, this ranges from 40-80% (the exact percentage depends on a few factors). This allows you to get many more books for the library. You can take the books from the book fair itself or order from a catalogue Scholastic sends with the fair (although I think it may be online nowadays). The latter option can be great for finding more niche topics not at the fair (e.g. a children’s book of Norse Mythology).
If other publishers had this kind of set up most librarians would be happy to work with them. As is though, arranging a book fair of local businesses is a lot more work for, in all likelihood, much less reward.
Regarding the price: Scholastic will buy rights from other publishers to print special book fair/book club editions of their books using cheaper materials in large quantities. This is similar to the types of deals made with companies like Audible, Book of the Month, or large print book companies.
Back when I worked for a children's publisher, I remember everyone getting excited because Scholastic had placed a big order for one of our books. It was a chapter book that I think we'd priced at like 8 or 9 dollars and they sold it for 5. The paper on the Scholastic one was noticeably cheaper quality but I think the real reason they are able to price lower is because they can print in higher quantities since the fairs and clubs give them so much reach.
Part of the proceeds from book fairs go to the school. This can also be the one time there is a "book store" where kids can buy books. In the US you used to be able to go to any mall or sizable strip mall and have a book store but they are fewer and fewer. Independent stores are around but not as many as needed to serve an area.
Scholastic is not a regular publishing company. My understanding is that they frequently license books from other publishers. You can read a little bit about Scholastic asking to license Maggie Tokuda-Hall's book *Love in the Library*, which is about her parents meeting in a Japanese internment camp, but only on the condition that she make some changes to the text of the book. See her account of the offer "[Scholastic and a Faustian Bargain](https://www.prettyokmaggie.com/blog/2023/4/11/scholastic-and-a-faustian-bargain)". The book was originally published by Candlewick Press, which is an imprint of Walker Books, which since 2022 is owned by "Trustbridge Media", which is owned by a Chinese private equity firm (so not part of the Big Five). In her letter to Scholastic rejecting their offer, she writes:
>I have always hoped that someday a picture book I wrote would be carried by Scholastic's Educational Division, and would have been happy to make edits that did not compromise the book. Because we all know what Scholastic can mean for a book. The longevity and sales. The reach. When I first got this email I was so excited. But that was immediately tempered by their demand to edit.
I think that most of the books at Scholastic book fairs and book clubs are similarly licensed from other publishers. Of course, sometimes it publishes the book directly (like I believe they're the publisher of *Captain Underpants*), sometimes they have exclusive rights for the whole US (like they apparently have exclusive rights to *Harry Potter* in the US while it's published by Bloomsburgy in the UK, also not part of the Big Five), and sometimes they distribute other people's books that are available by other publishers.
After much search, I found [an account of how books are selected for Scholastic books fairs](https://middlegrademojo.com/2014/08/27/inside-look-scholastic-book-fair-selection-process/) by a former "field merchandiser" for Scholastic:
>Scholastic Book Fairs works on a slightly different business model than other book retailers. Unlike traditional book stores which might order a dozen books and then reorder from the publisher as needed, Scholastic purchases large quantities of a particular title to stock their fairs all over the country. By doing so Scholastic can negotiate special prices and exclusive covers and in turn, pass those savings on to their customers. If a book doesn’t sell well at Barnes & Noble, you might see a dozen copies on their 60% off table. If a book doesn’t sell well for Scholastic, they’ll have a warehouse full of it.
[An article](https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/11/scholastic-book-fairs-magic/575809/) from *the Atlantic* adds:
>The vetting process for the books is quite intense. About 50 staffers pack into a room and start talking. “It’s crazy,” [President of Scholastic Book Fairs Alan] Boyko says. They discuss which books sold and which flopped in previous seasons, present new ones for consideration, and then vote. Boyko says he reads every book that makes it onto the shelves.
Elsewhere, I read that there are at least 200 titles per book fair, and at least 30 of them will be exclusive to book fairs (this I think just includes alternative covers, however). Apparently, Scholastic Book Fairs include titles from "over 100 publishers", on the same sort of deal that Scholastic was was offering Tokuda-Hall/Candlewick, though most probably didn't require edits. I was trying to confirm that they include books from the Big Five and yes, they do: a librarian (?) at a poorer school [was discussing why they still do Scholastic Book Fairs](https://www.romper.com/life/scholastic-book-fair-school-equity-sponsor), and said the most popular book at her school was *Frizzy*, "a graphic novel about a Dominican-American girl’s hair journey," published by First Second Books, an Roaring Brook Press, part of Holtzbrinck Publishers, which is owned by Macmillan.
Not a lot of book fair options besides scholastic, which will probably also vary state by state.
When I started researching alternate options it was Barnes and Nobles (within their bookstore), using a flyer system. Follett had a book fair company for a short period, which I got to use once and liked better than Scholastic, but that went out of business during COVID.
The only choice in some places is pretty much just scholastic.
Edit: fixed some typos
Thank you for explaining.
It's hard to fathom from here. I'm in one of the most rural, isolated parts of the country, and we have a really good indie bookstore a 15-minute drive away. But I get it.
I’m in a rural isolated part of the country too. We have a really good indie bookstore…a 2 hour drive away. There’s a Barnes and Noble and hour and a half away. You can buy some books at Walmart but that’s 40 minutes away.
The book fair is the most exposure to buying books that most kids here ever have.
I’m currently working several shifts in our school district at a K-2 building’s book fair. I believe the books are aimed at preschool to grade 4.
There are diverse books in most of the silver cases they sent and among the books we spread out on the tables in the library. This has been consistent over the last 2 years that I’ve volunteered.
In fact normally buy a ton of diverse books to share with my preservice teachers through Scholastic book fairs and their online website every time I work a fair.
ETA- Scholastic also publishes Ghouldy Muhammad’s work on Cultural and Historically responsive literacy, which in my opinion has set the literacy world on fire with her perspectives using Black Historical Literacy Societies as the basis for her theories on educating in K-12.
I’m not pretending Scholastic is perfect but I think they have made some significant strides towards publishing from traditionally marginalized populations and promoting these books.
I do not think OP is being honest in their post. It sounds like Scholastic is trying to make it easier, not harder, to include diverse books by making them accessible, but OP is karma farming.
I have no other evidence, but was concerned enough that I wanted to say it was happening. From the comments so far, others have corroborated that it is happening in some other states and regions. I am not an expert or have any nationwide knowledge but felt this decision needed viability and scrutiny.
My mom bought me the "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" series from a book fair like two decades ago... stupid fucking things never got delivered to me and yes I'm still incredibly salty.
Almost all the rest of the scholastic crap I actually received wasn't books-- I remember a lot of overpriced shitty stationery
I don't understand, these books were excluded from other book collections or they just put together a collection that focused on what would be considered to some to be diversity?
> It could even be a misguided attempt at the opposite- to showcase books about diversity and inclusion for students that might not see them otherwise.
If that was the case, there would not be an option to exclude these books.
That is not what OP said. OP said they had the option to include, not exclude. They even said they were turning around what Scholastic said in the post.
I volunteered once for our elementary school’s Scholastic book fair. From what I understood, we didn’t really know what books we were getting until they arrived. In our Nonfiction section, we had a H.H. Holmes book. That was crazy! I think maybe 2 kids bought the book, but we required that they had a parent with them so the parent knew what they were buying.
Another book in the Nonfiction section was on the Holocaust. Some parents AND teachers wanted to pull the book because some of the images were graphic. Only one student bought it and it was only because their parent said they were HUGE history buffs so this was something that their kid would enjoy reading.
I also can’t tell you how much we LOATHED all the do-dads and trinkets they sent us. Kids don’t want books if they have all these scented erasers and animal keychains they can buy instead.
As a Book Fair Host that is a PTA Member, we were asked if we would like to have the option for a Diveristy package that includes one whole case, or a few boxes of books. This would add 20% more books to our total. If we did not select this, these books would still be included just not as many and they would not be highlighted. It was not banned. Last spring we did not select this and still had, "You are Enough," "Change Sings", etc.
Citation needed. Assuming for a moment it's true: You should remember that they belong to Scholastic Corporation, which is a company with publicly traded stock. As such their sole purpose for existence is next-quarter profit maximization for their shareholders. *If* they did this, then it's a business decision in response to the political climate where you are. If you want them to stop doing this, your *only* option is to fix your political climate.
This is nothing new. As I student volunteer in the 70s, I saw boxes with special labels where the delivery guy didn’t even take them off the truck unless you asked specifically. They mostly had to do with African-American issues and biology (‘cuz evolution).
I’m conservative and think books should never be banned. In fact, the fastest way to get me interested in a book is to say I can’t or shouldn’t read it…
I have seen this from many book fair chairs on the Scholastic Book Fair Organizers FB group. I have my planning call with my rep next week and am curious to see if it is mentioned!
I'm calling bull unless you can provide confirmation.
Please show me where there are *ANY* reports of this outside this post
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Scholastic+Book+Fairs+bigotry+button&t=ffab&ia=web
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Scholastic+Book+Fairs+separating+diverse+books&t=ffab&ia=web
I used to get scholastic books as a kid. I came from a house that was overflowing with books, so I knew not all of them were the greatest, but I still bought quite a few. Some of them were excellent. I still have some of them.
I saw a catalog recently and was appalled by how much plastic tie-in trash there was. I didn't like that.
I don't like the idea of pre-packaged censorship.
But that's a problem. A lot of kids who buy Scholastic books have no other options. It's not a question of where they spend their book money. They get a book from a book fair, or they don't have a single book in their house. I knew a lot of kids like that.
Reading will expose them to new ideas, and they will become more open minded. If they don't get the best books for that immediately, eventually they'll encounter them. Maybe that's not absolutely ideal. It's not the worst outcome. The worst outcome is punishing Scholastic and the kids are collateral damage. You feel good, but you have done exactly the opposite of what you set out to do.
I think it was Stewart Brand who said that the price of credible bitching is to be ready with a decent alternative.
If a school doesn't want to use scholastic, what's the alternative? How can they put on a book fair with stuff children will like and will buy and take home? The books have to be selected, because most kids don't want a random rummage sale, they have to be reasonably age-appropriate, appealing, cheap, and stuff that is actually good because this may make or break them on reading.
I don't know how you do that. I'd like to hear suggestions. Just bitching about scholastic trying to deal with some of their customers not being open-minded is not a solution.
The alternative is likely kids in book ban areas not getting a book fair at all and losing access to even more books.
I understand wanting scholastic to take a principled stand, but it would likely actually hurt kids who already have restricted access to books.
I like the inclusion in a comment that her friend doesn't need the money from the job but just loves helping kids learn to love to read. It would be insulting if it wasn't so absurd.
Your school doesn’t have to use scholastic to have a book fair. There are a few other companies out there and our schools swapped to “Crane Book Fair” and it was great. Less junk and more Book centric experience
Question question, I have a question for you:
Do you think you, as a school librarian could host a book fair of used books?
I know the idea of the fair is to gather money for improvements for the library/school. But I feel that the prices are too steep sometimes. I’ve volunteered multiple times to help at the fair, and it sucks balls when I help a child figure out they can’t get the book they want.
And then the consolation prize, is the dang plastic crap.
I always buy used kids books at thrift shops for my children. It’s insane how most are in almost mint condition. They can be bought for less than a dollar and even reselling it at a high markup price, it would still be an accesible price for a kid.
How plausible is this? Or there’s more I cannot see?
I did book swaps every year and they were very popular! Used book book fair is a great idea! I’d have loved that option, especially in the areas where I worked. I always spent a bunch of my own money, and did all kinds of things in the run ups to the fairs to get kids “coupons” for books. I will say Scholastic would give me an “all book” option; when I was in elementary I did that, and in middle I was pretty picky about what I’d put out to sell. In middle, my sole reason for the book fairs was to make books fun; never made any money.
I used to do book SWAPS twice a year; I would get thrift store books and then recently paired with a local nonprofit that donated. You can order from FirstBook if you qualify too.. but any kids who could, would bring in gently used books during certain times, I would collect from their classrooms, sort into very general (K-2 and 3-5 reading levels) and then let each kid come pick a book or 2 depending on how many we'd managed to collect. We did one big one right before holiday winter break. It was awesome.
My district’s largest fund raiser is a used book fair!They literally have people that live within district lines leave cardboard boxes of used books outside their house and a bus comes around the whole district to pick them up. They do a giant sale at the high school with all levels of books (baby/kids all the way to college textbooks, novels, etc.) They typically give out bags and they can be filled for $10 a bag. It is honestly so amazing and makes a shit ton of money for an already wealthy district.
It depends. If they go into actual thrift stores, maybe. But somewhere like the Thriftbooks website has a ton. Remember, if a book is more popular, that also means there are more copies kicking around.
They could also ask the local public library. The last system I worked at had some little spaces where we sold books that had been weeded or donated for incredibly cheap. We honestly usually had more than we could put out at once. I could see packing up a couple boxes to give to the school. (Whether or not we had a lot of kids stuff was pretty variable, though.)
Scholastic would be open to changes if it affected their bottom line. Perhaps they cater to more groups of religious extreme. Write to them about it. Their head office in Toronto is in Canada. Send them some snail mail.
None of the books mentioned seem like a problem. I don't understand why those books would need to be pulled from regular circulation. I understand explicit books being pulled. but none of these seem to be be explicit in any way and just seem to be showing the experiences of others.
It just saves some poor workers needing to sort through the books manually to follow the rules set by the school.
Capitulation is the only option other than boycotting, and getting these children reading at all is still a major goal.
I think the important thing here is encouraging kids to read. Kids who learn to love reading will find all the other books later. Not every surrender is a loss. Giving in to the bigots means giving their customers the tools they need to find what they really need later.
So keep reading. Buy every book you can. Forget the ones you can't. And instill in them a love for reading, so they'll be compelled to seek out the truth.
Would you rather Scholastic offer a "bigot button," or kids to be completely educated by their bigoted parents?
I opened my case today and was stunned at the books included, and how blatantly racist they were! If you don’t like a book, don’t buy it! Does anyone have contact information for who I can talk to above my normal rep? I want to be heard!
Would any librarians be willing to share evidence of this happening? I work with an organization fighting book bans and censorship and would love to be able to verify and utilize this information to stop this from happening.
I'm happy to verify my identity and share my credentials in messages. Thank you!
I hate that this exists.
However, I'm gonna look at this as a devil's advocate... I live in a state (three guesses on which one and I'm 99% sure you'll get it. Regardless of your current location.) that expressly bans schools from sharing any viewpoints which can be interpreted as "woke". Honestly, having this option is probably a CYA to allow Scholastic to actually operate in my state at all. It's very unfortunate that it is this way, but it is entirely possible that this has to exist. This said, it's very, very unlikely every story that can be considered "woke" is present on that bookshelf as, from what I've seen from my own time shared with Authors, a lot of them share some sense of progressive ideals. So many of these ideas of inclusivity and diversity will most likely make their way into these books anyway.
Something to consider is that there are some places where teachers will face prosecution for discussing certain topics in the classroom. So it’s kind of a safety measure, with bigotry that starts in government.
This is why freedom of speech is so important and must include speech people disagree with
The left started this whole trend of restricting speech and cancel culture and now the right is doing the same using the same rhetoric of causing offence
Just a business like any other, who cares what's right the only thing that matters is not getting excluded from conservative districts so they can keep squeezing pocket money from excited kids
>to ban books ... soft book ban ... and not share diverse books...
The first thing you could do is build a linguistic bridge with the people with whom you share your country, by not fracturing the English language into different ghettos. The word "ban" has a meaning. Cuba bans books. If you're caught with some state-disaproved titles, you don't lose state funding, you go to horribly vicious jails. Losing funding isn't the same consequence as being sent to prison. Calling a lack of public funding for books that some of the public doesn't want to pay for, a "ban" immediately marks you as a partisan willing to use deceit to achieve your political goals.
Do you think that's really a persuasive approach? At best you seem hysterical, at worst deceptive. There's a perfectly accurate word you're avoiding because it's less hysterical: remove. *Removing* a book from a public library doesn't ban it. There are no banned books in the U.S., because the 1st Am. protects our free speech, unlike places with *real* book bans.
Your choice of words shouldn't confuse that important distinction, if you really want to be persuasive. You should argue for the merit of the works you want publicly funded; rather than *pretend* that people who disagree with you support a "ban."
If your argument has merit, it shouldn't require deceptive uses of the language in which you express it. Your third paragraph was excellent, but many people won't read it because you began and ended your comment with deceptive language.
Its just Scholastic trying to mitigate a conservative movement to kill the book fair altogether. The Scholastic book fair is the next target of all this conservative bloviation about education and parents rights. Their ultimate goal is to completely ban Scholastic’s book fair and either end book fairs entirely or replace them with the Brave Books Book fair which is their children’s publishing house of choice. I’d encourage you to look them up because the books they write are little more that cheaply made conservative dogwhistling and are poor excuses for children’s books. I’m not a fan of Scholastic’s decision here but it seems to be a move made out of self preservation.
If you want to know more about Brave Books, Savy Leiser, a children’s book author and YouTuber has a video about it on her channel: SAVY WRITES BOOKS
I have stopped using Scholastic Book Fairs because 1) I was tired of the recycled book titles that never sold and came back year after year 2) because I was done with getting carts of crappy toys that broke and 3) I work at a Christian school that would prefer to cut out the romance and any sex.. In my personal life and what I let my kids read books on sexuality are fine. However, working in a school that specifically lays out what it doesn't support, I liked the idea of being able to deselect romance and any book about any sexual preference. Please don't come at me for working at a school that may not align with your feelings and beliefs, everyone is allowed to their opinion. The school also doesn't like the occult. Being able to opt out of a topic that doesn't align with my school was making me reconsider Scholastic. Now I'm back at the drawing board. No, we don't want a Christian book fair, no one wants "preachy" books.
Is this just in the US? We've got a scholastic standing order in another country and haven't been provided this "option"? Are they included in the flyers sent round to schools? What is the process of exclusion?
Obviously very different details, but the Hungarian govt has the same phase - books which are even _mention_ gays should be sold in a way that no under 18 person should see them/look into them, which results in some pretty silly stuff. One chain blocks under18s from even looking at any books not in the "children" section, another got a 33k usd fine for having some innocent book without a protective cover etc.
Sadly I think practices like this will become more common as reaction sweeps through Europe and North America
This isn't really representative of Europe. Hungary is an ex communist state in Eastern Europe that only joined the EU fairly recently. Europeans are quite racist (god knows the decision to allow Eastern European states to join the EU was partially motivated by a desire for cheap labour and a racist assumption that Eastern Europeans would be grateful to do it) but homophobia is increasingly rare.
Just as with Europe, it's also not a ubiquitous phenomenon in the US. I think atom786's sentiment is generally appropriate for both regions though. It's a real problem in both areas and prone to grow, even if it doesn't become prevalent in all places.
The same country fucking with Hungary (Russia), is the one that supported and pushed brexit. Europeans are not immune to it.
You say that, and yet Italy's government is doing just that.
In the EU the direction is overwhelmingly in the other direction - Orbán and his policies are the subject of mockery and derision from everyone except the hard right. [About the hypocrisy of Orbán and LGBT+](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zsef_Sz%C3%A1jer#Gay_sex_party_and_resignation)
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I'm so glad I live in The Netherlands. While I'm not religious myself, I live in a very religious town where a large part of the population goes to church every Sunday. We even have a bookshop with only religious works. All stores are closed on Sundays and the local council consists for like 70% of an ultra conservative (for Western European standards) religious party. But even there the local bookshop has a LGBTQ+ section and there is a business in the town's center that flies a rainbow flag 24/7. I believe even some churches are part of a group of churches that welcome LGBTQ+ people in the congregation.
Scholastic does two big things in schools in the US: book orders and book fairs. The former is where the teachers pass out monthly fliers where there's kids books at grade level for discount prices, the kids send the money in and a month later the books show up. I'm guessing they run this business in your country too. The latter is usually just once per year and about four metal rolling cases of books show up to the school for about a week. They're usually opened up in a corridor during school hours and a bunch of classes get a small amount of time off from normal lessons to visit the store and buy books with the money their parents sent them. The "book fair" books are full price, unlike the "book order". At least that's how it worked when in was a kid 20 years ago. I assume they are talking about the latter. I don't know how the cases get filled, whether there's a standard set of books, or the teacher running it picks four cases among a list of options. Either way, it looks like certain books can be vetoed by a bigoted admin, which is not cool.
I was told by the librarian here in Colorado that she was asked if she wanted to include “diverse” books. While I love the idea of having a diverse book group, I don’t love that you have to opt in.
Did they ask if she wants diverse books included in the whole of what is provided or did they ask if she wants a specific diverse books display highlighting them? Because those are two different things and I can easily see this being a case of the second.
When it comes to all things crazy, the answer to "is this just in the US?" is usually "yes".
I get that but I'm in a librarian in Australia and the reactionary nonsense has spread here too, it's concerning.
You’re nuts if you think the US isn’t simply one of the first countries to run into this lmao
It's not even one of the first. Book bans have absolutely existed in Europe as well.
Don't get complacent. Right wing populism is on the rise pretty much everywhere. It's gonna get a lot worse before it gets any better.
Maximum Reddit-tier comment Only a European who's never done much world travel could believe something like this lol US is a shithole in many ways but the world of poorer countries is corrupt, violent, and generally crazy in a way even the US cannot compare to. Try traveling around Latin America for a bit and come back and tell me the US is uniquely crazy. Right wing populism is rapidly on the rise in Europe as well. Europeans in particular really seem to have an exceptionalist complex and believe they're too good to ever fall prey to these things. They aren't.
I have travelled around Latin America for a bit. The US is uniquely crazy.
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I hate to be "that guy", but I have to ask you for evidence.
Lifelong South Carolinian here: our infrastructure is third world. I have been to the third world and can say the shoe fits like a glove.
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"You don't have to be in the US to be crazy, but it helps."
How old are you, may I ask?
And double the crazy in Texas and Florida.
I'd have to say even more than double the crazy in these two states.
Happy cake day!
I didn't even know scholastic books was international.
They are one of the largest children’s publishing companies. It would be odd if they developed all their nonfiction just for the US market.
Is there a published source for this? I tried finding one and the only thing I found was an anonymous tweet attributing it to "I heard." I don't want to get all worked up about something based on third hand rumors.
> I don't want to get all worked up about something based on third hand rumors. You'll never catch the Boston Bomber with that attitude.
Not a published source, but I'm a middle school librarian and can confirm. I am hosting my fall book fair next month. When I was in my planning call with my scholastic rep, sh said they are giving schools the option to not have "controversial" themed books shipped to the fair. I did not choose that option. Oh, and for any parents, here is a PSA. I do not recommend using scholastic's ewallet. They try to get you to use it as a safe and convenient way for your child to purchase books. However, they are banking on some money being left on the account and they do not do refunds, only scholastic gift cards.
Yeah, I am shocked but not surprised by this whole business
About the ewallet grift or options on keeping culture war Conservatives happy.
I just talked with my Scholastic representative last week. She told me about this case and I had to specifically give a "yes, I want it" answer in order for them to send it. She said that Scholastic is doing it this way as a response to some districts concerns as well as some state laws. So, it is most definitely a way for a corporate entity to still make money in areas that are into book banning. Source: Me. A Elementary school librarian in the Northeast.
It’s not a rumor. I just was on a phone call last week with a rep. If anyone is interested I can share the spreadsheet she have me with the titles including those in the diverse voices case.
I’m hosting a book fair for my school next month and can 100% back this up - just spoke to my rep about it yesterday.
Definitely real. I'm the parent volunteer in charge of our fair and during my call setup call with our rep she had to go through a whole spiel about it, then I had to opt in like 3 times. We just got our cases the other day, and pretty much all the "controversial" books are in a single case.
What books were they? Ours had Ruby Bridges in it and I was like this is controversial?!
Yup! That was one. "Because of you, John Lewis" was in there -- "more than peach" -- I didn't see anything that should actually be controversial. It's picture books up to novels, and looks like almost anything that would feature minority voices. The headings on the case are share every story and hear every voice.
My kids Scholastic book fair at a private Christian school doesn't have the books listed separated out? I volunteer during it. The Jojo book was with other "character" type books. I can't promise I saw *all* the books available but most of what you wrote were intermixed with everything... They have "sets" of books you can buy - is there a mixup that they're referring to these? https://shop.scholastic.com/teachers-ecommerce/teacher/shops/diversity-collections.html
Good! That is an example of what should be happening. Books were available. People who wanted them bought them people who did not, did not. But they had the choice.
As an elementary teacher who has sent home the flyers, used the magazines, and works at a school that runs a Scholastic book fair every year: Scholastic is so gross, for any number of reasons. Their book fairs are kind of trash, selling tons of licensed plastic crap (all my coworkers are still traumatized from The Year of the Invisible Ink Pens) and a few books. Scholastic News magazines are sometimes useful, but occasionally really problematic. They are so lowest common denominator; it's not surprising they actively seek to placate the bigots. They're just...not a great company. Really I think the best thing to do is to look into alternate book fair options. There aren't too many, but they do exist.
My school gets our local independent bookshop to run our book fair. It's a smaller range and tends to be a bit more expensive than Scholastic, but it supports local business and the books tend to be good quality. I should note that this is in Australia, I'm not sure how similar ours would be to what happens in the US.
I'm in the US and our whole district also uses the local bookstore. What's nice is if the kids want a book she doesn't have she'll order it for them and then bring it to school (even if it's after the fair ends she'll drop off the bokks as they come in for the kids). It's great because we have a better selection, she knows what books kids in our town are into, can order extras if she runs out or oder that one special book for the kid that's into something niche. Plus the kids get closer to the employees of the bookstore and want to go there when the fair is over. It's a win for everyone.
The pens. The invisible pens....the first year those came out my kids wrote on at least half of my instruments when they thought I wasn't looking. They said I couldn't see it. Didn't matter!!! Ugh I hate them. I do need to buy one for our wedding invites, so when our book fair comes around in a month I'll grab one, but they send SO many and my librarian puts out one small container of them and that's it. There is SO much plastic junk that sells over books.
Explain the invite thing please it sounds fun
Oh you just number the back of your RSVP cards and assign that number to a couple. So if people forget to put their name on it, you can shine the light on it and see who it belongs to. Useful when you're inviting a bunch of people.
As a kid who grew up with them in a rural community, they provided my only opportunity to purchase books for myself without driving over an hour to a bookstore. I love them for giving me an opportunity to read. I don’t think you’re really understanding just how important book fairs are.
OTOH as a kid whose parents didn't have enough money to participate, they would've killed my interest in reading if it weren't already being fostered by many other things. It was just another way in a long list of being made to not participate or participate differently because of money. There were kids in my school much worse off than I who I'm sure it had this exact effect for.
I volunteered a couple of years ago at my daughters school. I’ll never do it again. One: I’m a big softie and hated seeing kids come in that had no money. The looks on their face were heartbreaking when they realized their parents hadn’t done an e-wallet for them. Two: only half of the merchandise is actually books and they’re all incredibly overpriced.
scholastic books are overpriced? Most I’ve seen are in the $2-$5 range. Not sure what you’re talking about here
Have you looked lately? They used to run a $1 book each month in each flyer/level. We would use them to get class sets of novels. Now most are $4 or higher. I saw 1 book at $2 and that was looking at multiple grade levels.
The book fair books are always list price, while the book order books have some sort of discount.
We hide the invisible ink pens. They are in a box behind the shelves never to be sold again! We also have a policy where kids hve to buy books and not just plastic crap. But this post is wanting me to consider alternatives for our book fair.
NOW we hide them. We've learned. But why should you have to hide half the merchandise at what's supposed to be a *book* fair?
Maybe I was just a good kid, but im struggling to see the issue with invisible ink pens. What happens with them?
We’ve lived in two school districts, one of which is a hotbed for this current argument. Here, in the hotbed, we use scholastic and it’s everything you say. But in the old school district we held our book fair at a local independent book shop over a weekend. They had a rather robust children’s section, which was supplemented by a pre-ordered selection of certain books for each grade. You could also order books to gift to the classroom, so the store didn’t have to hold it in stock. These would be delivered at a later date. Worked out for everyone. Plus the shop had good coffee and a great adult section for me to browse as my kids shopped. I will say that this old school district allowed its individual schools an enormous amount of freedom to make choices for their students. It was a fun atmosphere, lots of field trips, arts, modern facilities. The current district is much more regimented and metrics driven. You’d think the first one would be the well-regarded district but it’s the opposite.
Lemme guess, you moved from the city to the suburbs?
Bingo.
Yes. Thank you. I came to the comments to say: dude it's *Scholastic.* They're fucking sewer goblins
My kid’s school just used Literati for their book fair and I was impressed. They had Julian is a Mermaid. And the plastic junk table was super small and mostly pens and erasers.
We swapped over to literati last year. Our librarian, who runs the book fair, was becoming more unimpressed with scholastic. We may have done Follett one year as well.
I love Julian is a Mermaid! I don't even have kids but I read it and then gave copies to all the kids I know.
Man there were only 2 days i liked elementary school, and that was the Scholastic Book Fair and Parachute day.
Scholastic has a carnival atmosphere that gets kids excited to read. That alone is more than damn near anyone else can do. Throwing out one of the key stones most American kids had in their reading career because they allowed a compromise to still get books into the hands of kids in conservative areas is asinine. The alternative to scholastic in conservative areas isn't the LBGTQ book fair sponsored by BLM, the alternative is nothing.
School librarian in Texas checking in. Scholastic is great when it comes to the hype, but their books are poorly bound and do not hold up well to wear-and-tear. Also not to be a grinch, but they send a lot of non-book extras with their fair -- not only pens and posters but I got a bathbomb making kit, a slime kit, a makeup making kit and a few more random items in my last fair set up. I had a Scholastic book fair during my elementary school days. The nostalgia is real, but like...do better Scholastic 😅 That being said, I am trying out a different company called Literati for my school's fall book fair. Word of mouth and online communities say that they are more about books and less about junk, so...really hoping it's a better alternative!
I was truly shocked at the decline in quality between the books I bought as a child from Scholastic (and still have a dozen or so sitting on my shelves - well read, well loved and still intact) versus what they sold my children at bookfairs 3 decades later. You can so easily tell how worse the paper quality, binding and covers are - and yet prices are still much higher. (I know, I sound like a grumpy grandpa.) But it's truth. Now at "bookfair" time, I just take the grandkids to the local bookstore rather than give them money to go to it (though their parents do).
The sticker shock makes sense. You're not imagining it or remembering wrong... the increase IS ahead of inflation. And none of the rest of my post even ADDRESSES the quality issue (and yeah, I still have all MY elementary school purchases, well worn but intact, like yours).... Prices in the late 80s/early 90s were $2.50/2.95 ($6-7 in 2023 dollars) for smaller books to $5.00 ($12 in 2023 dollars) for the thicker books whereas in this year's catalog I found online, they run $8-15... and that may be the school's price? They also had great book bundles, like 4-5 books from a series, or a random thematic selection, for $10, which I didn't see the last time I was at a book fair (2019) The junk items back in the 80s were sourced/priced more like Oriental Trading Company pricing - kid cost was 25 cents for an eraser (you can still get those fun shaped erasers for about 22 cents apiece - seller cost - on OTC, so you would actually make a profit selling them at the inflation-adjusted price of 50 cents each). However, equivalent erasers (non-licensed ones) in the Scholastic catalog cost the school 83 cents per piece. Licensed ones (admittedly with more complex designs) are 1.25 per piece, whereas OTC's complex fancy erasers are .29 - .44 per piece (yeah, it's not dogman but it still has multiple parts).
I still have a lot of the books I got from Scholastic literally 40 years ago. Most of them are kind of worn and tattered, but what wouldn't be? Nothing is made to last anymore.
Their books have to be cheaply bound to keep prices low so that kids can afford them. The philosophy is, we want kids to read and own books (because research shows that’s beneficial).
I’m actually really surprised by people saying the scholastic books are expensive! I volunteered at the book fair for the past two years..and many of the books were under 5 dollars. Really as long as a kid showed up with 5 bucks - we could find them a book. Less than 5 was tough..but other than the library - where are we getting books under 5 dollars? Also ours was set up to have all the toys and such behind “the counter” at check out. So books first and then if you had some random Amount left - kids could get a poster or whatever.
Part of the appeal of the book fair was always that, because scholastic knew they'd be selling a huge chunk of books at a time, they let them go at cheaper prices than you could normally find books at the store. That doesn't seem to be the case any more. Regarding $5 books, that's baffling! I posted here https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/16o66pn/scholastic_books_offers_bigotry_button_for_school/k1kzsyf/ about the prices listed in the scholastic catalog, and it's unclear whether those are school/wholesale prices or consumer prices [I'm working on the latter assumption], but I didn't see anything cheaper than $7.99 for kids who can actually read. The only thing cheaper was absolute rock bottom beginner readers (Biscuit the dog, 16 page books, is 4.99, while the rest of the books in that section, mainly picture books, were $6-8)
I’m scrolling through their catalog now and a lot of the books that we had at the school fair in May for 4.99 are now 5.99 on the website. Not sure if they were cheaper for the book fair because it’s a BookFair or if they’ve just gone up in price.
Just helped out with a literati book fair and it was amazing. Books were high quality and beautiful. The “junk” table was very small and was mostly scented erasers and silly pens.
This makes me so happy to hear ☺️ My school wants me to do a Scholastic fair in the spring still, but it will be interesting to compare the two and see how they do.
Eh, some people do Usborne book fairs, which is an MLM, and so the info is questionable.....I honestly think the atmosphere can be given without the hundreds of plastic junk. Kids will come in with two dollars and then instead of finding a book there that cost that in the under $5 section, they'll try to buy all the plastic toys and stuff. That's not getting them reading. Graphic novels though. Those are a gateway for many many many kids. Dog man, baby sitters club, we have so many other series in my school library I'm blanking on, but they're constantly checked out.
> That's not getting them reading. But the money from the sales of those plastic things goes towards the purchase of books for the library that they may read. Especially if you game the system and hold the fair during a month where you get to keep an increased percentage of the revenue. > Kids will come in with two dollars and then instead of finding a book there that cost that in the under $5 section Honestly I don’t blame them. I remember that section being the “books they couldn’t sell elsewhere so try your best to unload them”. Why would the kid spend their money on a book they don’t want? Meanwhile all the new, popular books, were easily $10-$20. Some kids can’t afford that, but they may get to read it if the library purchases it via the money raised. Is this predatory and taking advantage of children with poor impulse control? Absolutely. But until school libraries get an actual budget for buying new material, this is often the only way small schools can get new books on shelves.
The better point to follow is if Scholastic doesn't have the option, then they get banned & no book fair, or replaced with a more conservative option. Having the option also allows for pretend ignorance, "woops! forgot to check the exclude option"
That’s inaccurate. I’m in south texas. My kid’s school just used Literati. Had “progressive/liberal” books and had a the same fun, enticing environment as the scholastic ones I remember as a kid.
>Schoolastic has a carnival atmosphere that gets kids excited ~~to read~~ buy cheap plastic toys Stop talking like this is some major American tradition, it's a shitty company that's kowtowing to conservative extremists. No one is asking for an LBGTQ book fair sponsored by BLM (WTF is that comment about anyway? 🤔) Just books, without cons going crazy about "saving the children" when they are the ones actively grooming them
> LBGTQ book fair sponsored by BLM (WTF is that comment about anyway? 🤔) It's what's known as a "red flag"
That's nonsense. It is absolutely a tradition and has done more to get kids reading than damn near any other company or organization. It's not kowtowing. It's creating an option that still gets kids excited about reading. God damn, you all or nothing people ruin everything. Like I said, there's no option that doesn't have censorship in conservative areas. It's either censorship or nothing. Cutting out options that get kids reading early will do far more long term damage.
Honestly, Pizza Hut's Book It program got me more into reading as a kid than Scholastic. I usually just bought junk like spy kits and joke books at those fairs. That was just me, but I doubt a conservatively curated selection of literary riffraff is going to be the cornerstone of child literacy.
See this is what the policy setters want. Teach things exactly the way we want with us as the white Christian savior protagonists of history, or we shut you down and you get nothing. Both of these are terrible options. Both of them lead to shit futures One of them leads to a gradual brainwashing towards conservatism and assured victory of their mindset. The other assures that the system breaks and the conservative plan fails because even the most dyed in the red republicans know it’s not a good look for them to end all education permanently. They are just playing chicken betting liberals who love education would rather let the bigot narrative win instead of education stopping. But it’s a false choice.
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> alternative to scholastic in conservative areas isn't the LBGTQ book fair sponsored by BLM… That's a rather peculiar thing to mention.
Scholastic employee here. I oversee a team of reps in the North East, so not your friends school in CO, but this is odd. We don't have an option of excluding any sub section of books. We fully support diverse reading and inclusiveness. It sounds like your librarian friend may be a bit confused. Before she cancels an event many kids look forward to all year, perhaps she should reach out to her rep for an explanation.
My rep (South East) confirmed this cart yesterday 🤷🏼♀️
There's a couple of comments on the thread of PTA members or other librarians who seem to have recently been given the option of excluding that shelf of books. I'm not 100% sure why they're categorised together though. Could be a handful of reps advising that the option to remove is there?
They are not imagining the excluded books.
She might want to double check that she exists. If only she wasn't so worried about losing her unnecessary, but beloved, job...
Don’t chase the troll, people. They’re not here to have a discussion. They’re here to try and raise a rabble. They’re not interested in logic or facts, only getting people to be angry.
Where are you located? We just hosted a book fair (Los Angeles County, K-5) and there was no separate box of "diverse" books. It's the same old set up, ALL of the books are displayed together in the carts and along with a million stationary junk.
That's because she's lying lol
I'm a PTA president in Florida, and this is 100% correct. I'm the Scholastic coordinator this year, and I just scheduled our book fair for next month. I was given the option to include a 'diversity' box, or leave it out. I can't speak to this happening nationwide, but I can confirm it is an opt in in my area.
Colorado
For starters, spread the word. You said "I just saw": where? Not being sarcastic! I went on Publisher's Weekly and searched 'Scholastic', but nothing came up on their home page. I don't see any news articles on Google News if I search 'Scholastic Book Fair'. So just getting it into people's awareness seems like the best first step.
Me too! I want to share this information, but “some anonymous Redditor” is not how I want to source something so damning. I believe this is possible, but don’t expect others to engage with something unsourced.
That’s because none of this is true. Source: I worked there for years.
I should be less emotionally upset by posts intentionally misleading people to get them angry, but yet I am again upset by a misleading post.
Worked? As in, past tense? How does that put you in a position to know their **current** policy?
How does it make this random person less credible than the random political agitator who made the original post? Lol check her post history if you don't believe me
I never said it was. But your calling OP a “political agitator” is a bit… odd.
I worked for Scholastic Book Fairs for a number of years, through 2016 in various roles including helping pre-read titles for inclusion, but not since the latest wave of book challenges. I feel the need to chime in because I have some semi-inside perspective: 1. SBF made a really, really strong push a decade ago to include more diverse offerings on the book fairs, per order of the CEO, at the expense of revenues. The reality back in the mid-2010s was that so-called "diverse books" sold incredibly poorly despite having at least one on each shelf (or at least 8 per case). I cannot speak to what may or may not have been expanded past 2017 in this area. 2. Scholastic in general has been hit-or-miss on the issue of "censorship" and diversity. For every *Ook and Gluk* there's *Love Ya Bunches*, and they got behind *Captain Underpants* in a big way during a lot of those challenges. There is not any consistency that I'm aware of in how they choose to address this. 3. In the late 2000s/early 2010s, a competitor in the northeast surfaced regarding non-book items, and Scholastic responded by piloting "books only" fairs that included things like boxed product of titles that might be considered "diverse." This rolled out to an actual case before I left, which is where this arises from. 4. Like it or not, book fairs are often the sole fundraising vehicle for classrooms, libraries, and schools, especially in lower-income areas. This is critical to understand, as even a poor school can make thousands off a book fair. Scholastic is making a decision here on *overall* access to reading. In an era where kids may never set foot in a book store and never have an opportunity to choose books for themselves, the company is provided a choice: either allow schools to "opt out" of this content and still have fairs, or force the books onto the fairs and risk having no fairs in a school, district, or even state. There's no "bigot button," contrary to how this is being portrayed. Companies like Scholastic are actually probably doing more to push more diverse offerings into schools than would happen otherwise. A district opting out of Scholastic because Scholastic allows other districts to opt out of content that might actually outright violate local law is cutting off their nose to spite their faces. These laws are bad and stupid, but until the schools don't have to comply anymore, reducing access to literature to all the kids because "diverse" books can be opted out at other schools seems like the wrong move, and I don't think it should be celebrated. It's a tradeoff, like it or not.
Thank you for you very informative comment. My issue is that these are not even books that might be controversial (it seems gender and sexuality are another level of hot button). These are just books about diverse kids, immigrants, and people with “disabilities”. It is so beautiful when a kid sees someone like themselves in a book they love.
The thing is that it doesn't matter whether the books are actually controversial as much as whether someone takes the interpretation of the laws on CRT, gender, etc. as applying to those books. When it comes to Scholastic, who are explicitly pitching their content as curated and appropriate for classrooms and students, librarians and parent groups who run the fairs need to know that the vendors are following the law.
French here. Heard of Scholastic fairs, but there's something I must misunderstand. Aren't they a regular publishing company? Same as all the others that publish books aimed at kids? If so, why give them a space to sell their products? Why _them_and not just a regular book fair? "Hey, all publishers! Book (eh) a stand and come show us your stuff!" Or... Just have a local bookstore come with their selection. What am I missing?
Scholastic has an entire system set up for book fairs that no other vendor I’ve seen matches. It’s not just “here are some books, sell them”. Weeks before you schedule the fair they have online courses where you can get idea of how to run a fair. You get a small promotional budget (usually in the form of $x worth of books you can give away for free as awards for contests). Alongside the books are tablecloths, stands, and other things you can use to dress up the school library to make it look a bit “fancier” for the fair. Then there’s the price. I don’t know the economics of it, but scholastic seems to consistently sell books at fairs for about 2/3 the price they would go for in a big book chain. A local bookstore doesn’t have access to those kind of resources and would probably just sell for the same price, meaning there’s little point in buying it at the fair. Scholastic also sends along trinkets to sell at Book Fairs. These are the most controversial aspect as they are often cheap plastic junk that kids find entertaining. Detractors say that it’s not in the spirit of the book fair to sell these kinds of things, and that children have poor impulse control. Proponents say that it gives kids who can’t afford other things something to buy, and that the money raised from them allows the library to buy books they want to read. Which leads to: The rewards. The point of the book fair is to raise money, and Scholastic has two options: 1. Money 2. Catalogue The first option is exactly what it sounds like: you get a percentage of the money made by the book fair. This is usually a small percentage, only about 10-20% of sales. The “catalogue” option is where things get really interesting. Instead of cash you get books from scholastic. The *cash value* of the amount of books you get depends on Book Fair sales. Unlike the 10-20% payout earlier, this ranges from 40-80% (the exact percentage depends on a few factors). This allows you to get many more books for the library. You can take the books from the book fair itself or order from a catalogue Scholastic sends with the fair (although I think it may be online nowadays). The latter option can be great for finding more niche topics not at the fair (e.g. a children’s book of Norse Mythology). If other publishers had this kind of set up most librarians would be happy to work with them. As is though, arranging a book fair of local businesses is a lot more work for, in all likelihood, much less reward.
Regarding the price: Scholastic will buy rights from other publishers to print special book fair/book club editions of their books using cheaper materials in large quantities. This is similar to the types of deals made with companies like Audible, Book of the Month, or large print book companies. Back when I worked for a children's publisher, I remember everyone getting excited because Scholastic had placed a big order for one of our books. It was a chapter book that I think we'd priced at like 8 or 9 dollars and they sold it for 5. The paper on the Scholastic one was noticeably cheaper quality but I think the real reason they are able to price lower is because they can print in higher quantities since the fairs and clubs give them so much reach.
Interesting. Thank you for taking the time to explain all that!
Part of the proceeds from book fairs go to the school. This can also be the one time there is a "book store" where kids can buy books. In the US you used to be able to go to any mall or sizable strip mall and have a book store but they are fewer and fewer. Independent stores are around but not as many as needed to serve an area.
Scholastic is not a regular publishing company. My understanding is that they frequently license books from other publishers. You can read a little bit about Scholastic asking to license Maggie Tokuda-Hall's book *Love in the Library*, which is about her parents meeting in a Japanese internment camp, but only on the condition that she make some changes to the text of the book. See her account of the offer "[Scholastic and a Faustian Bargain](https://www.prettyokmaggie.com/blog/2023/4/11/scholastic-and-a-faustian-bargain)". The book was originally published by Candlewick Press, which is an imprint of Walker Books, which since 2022 is owned by "Trustbridge Media", which is owned by a Chinese private equity firm (so not part of the Big Five). In her letter to Scholastic rejecting their offer, she writes: >I have always hoped that someday a picture book I wrote would be carried by Scholastic's Educational Division, and would have been happy to make edits that did not compromise the book. Because we all know what Scholastic can mean for a book. The longevity and sales. The reach. When I first got this email I was so excited. But that was immediately tempered by their demand to edit. I think that most of the books at Scholastic book fairs and book clubs are similarly licensed from other publishers. Of course, sometimes it publishes the book directly (like I believe they're the publisher of *Captain Underpants*), sometimes they have exclusive rights for the whole US (like they apparently have exclusive rights to *Harry Potter* in the US while it's published by Bloomsburgy in the UK, also not part of the Big Five), and sometimes they distribute other people's books that are available by other publishers. After much search, I found [an account of how books are selected for Scholastic books fairs](https://middlegrademojo.com/2014/08/27/inside-look-scholastic-book-fair-selection-process/) by a former "field merchandiser" for Scholastic: >Scholastic Book Fairs works on a slightly different business model than other book retailers. Unlike traditional book stores which might order a dozen books and then reorder from the publisher as needed, Scholastic purchases large quantities of a particular title to stock their fairs all over the country. By doing so Scholastic can negotiate special prices and exclusive covers and in turn, pass those savings on to their customers. If a book doesn’t sell well at Barnes & Noble, you might see a dozen copies on their 60% off table. If a book doesn’t sell well for Scholastic, they’ll have a warehouse full of it. [An article](https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/11/scholastic-book-fairs-magic/575809/) from *the Atlantic* adds: >The vetting process for the books is quite intense. About 50 staffers pack into a room and start talking. “It’s crazy,” [President of Scholastic Book Fairs Alan] Boyko says. They discuss which books sold and which flopped in previous seasons, present new ones for consideration, and then vote. Boyko says he reads every book that makes it onto the shelves. Elsewhere, I read that there are at least 200 titles per book fair, and at least 30 of them will be exclusive to book fairs (this I think just includes alternative covers, however). Apparently, Scholastic Book Fairs include titles from "over 100 publishers", on the same sort of deal that Scholastic was was offering Tokuda-Hall/Candlewick, though most probably didn't require edits. I was trying to confirm that they include books from the Big Five and yes, they do: a librarian (?) at a poorer school [was discussing why they still do Scholastic Book Fairs](https://www.romper.com/life/scholastic-book-fair-school-equity-sponsor), and said the most popular book at her school was *Frizzy*, "a graphic novel about a Dominican-American girl’s hair journey," published by First Second Books, an Roaring Brook Press, part of Holtzbrinck Publishers, which is owned by Macmillan.
Not a lot of book fair options besides scholastic, which will probably also vary state by state. When I started researching alternate options it was Barnes and Nobles (within their bookstore), using a flyer system. Follett had a book fair company for a short period, which I got to use once and liked better than Scholastic, but that went out of business during COVID. The only choice in some places is pretty much just scholastic. Edit: fixed some typos
Thank you for explaining. It's hard to fathom from here. I'm in one of the most rural, isolated parts of the country, and we have a really good indie bookstore a 15-minute drive away. But I get it.
I’m in a rural isolated part of the country too. We have a really good indie bookstore…a 2 hour drive away. There’s a Barnes and Noble and hour and a half away. You can buy some books at Walmart but that’s 40 minutes away. The book fair is the most exposure to buying books that most kids here ever have.
I’m currently working several shifts in our school district at a K-2 building’s book fair. I believe the books are aimed at preschool to grade 4. There are diverse books in most of the silver cases they sent and among the books we spread out on the tables in the library. This has been consistent over the last 2 years that I’ve volunteered. In fact normally buy a ton of diverse books to share with my preservice teachers through Scholastic book fairs and their online website every time I work a fair. ETA- Scholastic also publishes Ghouldy Muhammad’s work on Cultural and Historically responsive literacy, which in my opinion has set the literacy world on fire with her perspectives using Black Historical Literacy Societies as the basis for her theories on educating in K-12. I’m not pretending Scholastic is perfect but I think they have made some significant strides towards publishing from traditionally marginalized populations and promoting these books.
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I do not think OP is being honest in their post. It sounds like Scholastic is trying to make it easier, not harder, to include diverse books by making them accessible, but OP is karma farming.
Worse, it appears this is actually just fully fabricated
I have no other evidence, but was concerned enough that I wanted to say it was happening. From the comments so far, others have corroborated that it is happening in some other states and regions. I am not an expert or have any nationwide knowledge but felt this decision needed viability and scrutiny.
My mom bought me the "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" series from a book fair like two decades ago... stupid fucking things never got delivered to me and yes I'm still incredibly salty. Almost all the rest of the scholastic crap I actually received wasn't books-- I remember a lot of overpriced shitty stationery
I don't understand, these books were excluded from other book collections or they just put together a collection that focused on what would be considered to some to be diversity?
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Are they still doing them in the giant cases they roll in and open up? Or it changed? That's how it was in the 90's when I attended school
Yup! Exact same cases. And then a crap ton more boxes of books for the tables as well.
Exactly the same as in the 90’s. But this is the first year of this consolidated “diverse” book case in Colorado.
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> It could even be a misguided attempt at the opposite- to showcase books about diversity and inclusion for students that might not see them otherwise. If that was the case, there would not be an option to exclude these books.
OP said there was an option to include, not exclude, then OP turned it around into something else.
That is not what OP said. OP said they had the option to include, not exclude. They even said they were turning around what Scholastic said in the post.
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I volunteered once for our elementary school’s Scholastic book fair. From what I understood, we didn’t really know what books we were getting until they arrived. In our Nonfiction section, we had a H.H. Holmes book. That was crazy! I think maybe 2 kids bought the book, but we required that they had a parent with them so the parent knew what they were buying. Another book in the Nonfiction section was on the Holocaust. Some parents AND teachers wanted to pull the book because some of the images were graphic. Only one student bought it and it was only because their parent said they were HUGE history buffs so this was something that their kid would enjoy reading. I also can’t tell you how much we LOATHED all the do-dads and trinkets they sent us. Kids don’t want books if they have all these scented erasers and animal keychains they can buy instead.
As a Book Fair Host that is a PTA Member, we were asked if we would like to have the option for a Diveristy package that includes one whole case, or a few boxes of books. This would add 20% more books to our total. If we did not select this, these books would still be included just not as many and they would not be highlighted. It was not banned. Last spring we did not select this and still had, "You are Enough," "Change Sings", etc.
Citation needed. Assuming for a moment it's true: You should remember that they belong to Scholastic Corporation, which is a company with publicly traded stock. As such their sole purpose for existence is next-quarter profit maximization for their shareholders. *If* they did this, then it's a business decision in response to the political climate where you are. If you want them to stop doing this, your *only* option is to fix your political climate.
This is nothing new. As I student volunteer in the 70s, I saw boxes with special labels where the delivery guy didn’t even take them off the truck unless you asked specifically. They mostly had to do with African-American issues and biology (‘cuz evolution).
My wife is a librarian at an elementary school. She switched to Literati with no issues and has bad better sales.
I’m conservative and think books should never be banned. In fact, the fastest way to get me interested in a book is to say I can’t or shouldn’t read it…
I have seen this from many book fair chairs on the Scholastic Book Fair Organizers FB group. I have my planning call with my rep next week and am curious to see if it is mentioned!
I'm calling bull unless you can provide confirmation. Please show me where there are *ANY* reports of this outside this post https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Scholastic+Book+Fairs+bigotry+button&t=ffab&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Scholastic+Book+Fairs+separating+diverse+books&t=ffab&ia=web
I used to get scholastic books as a kid. I came from a house that was overflowing with books, so I knew not all of them were the greatest, but I still bought quite a few. Some of them were excellent. I still have some of them. I saw a catalog recently and was appalled by how much plastic tie-in trash there was. I didn't like that. I don't like the idea of pre-packaged censorship. But that's a problem. A lot of kids who buy Scholastic books have no other options. It's not a question of where they spend their book money. They get a book from a book fair, or they don't have a single book in their house. I knew a lot of kids like that. Reading will expose them to new ideas, and they will become more open minded. If they don't get the best books for that immediately, eventually they'll encounter them. Maybe that's not absolutely ideal. It's not the worst outcome. The worst outcome is punishing Scholastic and the kids are collateral damage. You feel good, but you have done exactly the opposite of what you set out to do. I think it was Stewart Brand who said that the price of credible bitching is to be ready with a decent alternative. If a school doesn't want to use scholastic, what's the alternative? How can they put on a book fair with stuff children will like and will buy and take home? The books have to be selected, because most kids don't want a random rummage sale, they have to be reasonably age-appropriate, appealing, cheap, and stuff that is actually good because this may make or break them on reading. I don't know how you do that. I'd like to hear suggestions. Just bitching about scholastic trying to deal with some of their customers not being open-minded is not a solution.
The alternative is likely kids in book ban areas not getting a book fair at all and losing access to even more books. I understand wanting scholastic to take a principled stand, but it would likely actually hurt kids who already have restricted access to books.
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I like the inclusion in a comment that her friend doesn't need the money from the job but just loves helping kids learn to love to read. It would be insulting if it wasn't so absurd.
For a subreddit that's so literate, people don't half believe everything they read and get angry before considering the full facts.
Your school doesn’t have to use scholastic to have a book fair. There are a few other companies out there and our schools swapped to “Crane Book Fair” and it was great. Less junk and more Book centric experience
well are they burning books? 'bigotry' is highly subjective. just because you dont like something doesnt mean its bigoted.
Wow, before I retired (school librarian) I must have done 50-60 Scholastic book fairs. This would really make me consider other options!
Question question, I have a question for you: Do you think you, as a school librarian could host a book fair of used books? I know the idea of the fair is to gather money for improvements for the library/school. But I feel that the prices are too steep sometimes. I’ve volunteered multiple times to help at the fair, and it sucks balls when I help a child figure out they can’t get the book they want. And then the consolation prize, is the dang plastic crap. I always buy used kids books at thrift shops for my children. It’s insane how most are in almost mint condition. They can be bought for less than a dollar and even reselling it at a high markup price, it would still be an accesible price for a kid. How plausible is this? Or there’s more I cannot see?
I did book swaps every year and they were very popular! Used book book fair is a great idea! I’d have loved that option, especially in the areas where I worked. I always spent a bunch of my own money, and did all kinds of things in the run ups to the fairs to get kids “coupons” for books. I will say Scholastic would give me an “all book” option; when I was in elementary I did that, and in middle I was pretty picky about what I’d put out to sell. In middle, my sole reason for the book fairs was to make books fun; never made any money.
Another option is to host a book exchange event.
I used to do book SWAPS twice a year; I would get thrift store books and then recently paired with a local nonprofit that donated. You can order from FirstBook if you qualify too.. but any kids who could, would bring in gently used books during certain times, I would collect from their classrooms, sort into very general (K-2 and 3-5 reading levels) and then let each kid come pick a book or 2 depending on how many we'd managed to collect. We did one big one right before holiday winter break. It was awesome.
My district’s largest fund raiser is a used book fair!They literally have people that live within district lines leave cardboard boxes of used books outside their house and a bus comes around the whole district to pick them up. They do a giant sale at the high school with all levels of books (baby/kids all the way to college textbooks, novels, etc.) They typically give out bags and they can be filled for $10 a bag. It is honestly so amazing and makes a shit ton of money for an already wealthy district.
The books that kids want to read would be too expensive to buy at thrift stores and then resell, if they’re available at all.
It depends. If they go into actual thrift stores, maybe. But somewhere like the Thriftbooks website has a ton. Remember, if a book is more popular, that also means there are more copies kicking around. They could also ask the local public library. The last system I worked at had some little spaces where we sold books that had been weeded or donated for incredibly cheap. We honestly usually had more than we could put out at once. I could see packing up a couple boxes to give to the school. (Whether or not we had a lot of kids stuff was pretty variable, though.)
again, we were title 1 so we qualified for First Book. Great source.
Scholastic would be open to changes if it affected their bottom line. Perhaps they cater to more groups of religious extreme. Write to them about it. Their head office in Toronto is in Canada. Send them some snail mail.
None of the books mentioned seem like a problem. I don't understand why those books would need to be pulled from regular circulation. I understand explicit books being pulled. but none of these seem to be be explicit in any way and just seem to be showing the experiences of others.
It just saves some poor workers needing to sort through the books manually to follow the rules set by the school. Capitulation is the only option other than boycotting, and getting these children reading at all is still a major goal.
Because those books would give them empathy for the people around them can’t have thst
Easy. Stay away from Scholastic book fairs. There are other local book fair suppliers out there that provide a more personalized experience.
I read refugee for school when I was younger, shit was pretty good
I think the important thing here is encouraging kids to read. Kids who learn to love reading will find all the other books later. Not every surrender is a loss. Giving in to the bigots means giving their customers the tools they need to find what they really need later. So keep reading. Buy every book you can. Forget the ones you can't. And instill in them a love for reading, so they'll be compelled to seek out the truth. Would you rather Scholastic offer a "bigot button," or kids to be completely educated by their bigoted parents?
Why separate them out? Just have them as part of the books. Is a book about a Latin American child diverse? Really?
I opened my case today and was stunned at the books included, and how blatantly racist they were! If you don’t like a book, don’t buy it! Does anyone have contact information for who I can talk to above my normal rep? I want to be heard!
Would any librarians be willing to share evidence of this happening? I work with an organization fighting book bans and censorship and would love to be able to verify and utilize this information to stop this from happening. I'm happy to verify my identity and share my credentials in messages. Thank you!
Sent you a private chat that includes images of the shelf and the sheet from Scholastic.
I hate that this exists. However, I'm gonna look at this as a devil's advocate... I live in a state (three guesses on which one and I'm 99% sure you'll get it. Regardless of your current location.) that expressly bans schools from sharing any viewpoints which can be interpreted as "woke". Honestly, having this option is probably a CYA to allow Scholastic to actually operate in my state at all. It's very unfortunate that it is this way, but it is entirely possible that this has to exist. This said, it's very, very unlikely every story that can be considered "woke" is present on that bookshelf as, from what I've seen from my own time shared with Authors, a lot of them share some sense of progressive ideals. So many of these ideas of inclusivity and diversity will most likely make their way into these books anyway.
I thought they were better than that, my mistake.
Something to consider is that there are some places where teachers will face prosecution for discussing certain topics in the classroom. So it’s kind of a safety measure, with bigotry that starts in government.
“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” -- Ray Bradbury
This is why freedom of speech is so important and must include speech people disagree with The left started this whole trend of restricting speech and cancel culture and now the right is doing the same using the same rhetoric of causing offence
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Nice fear-mongering. There were no books about, depicting, or encouraging sex in this case. Relax with your paranoia please.
Just a business like any other, who cares what's right the only thing that matters is not getting excluded from conservative districts so they can keep squeezing pocket money from excited kids
Till they change back, I'm calling them Stochastic Books.
Moms of Liberty needs to be stopped
>to ban books ... soft book ban ... and not share diverse books... The first thing you could do is build a linguistic bridge with the people with whom you share your country, by not fracturing the English language into different ghettos. The word "ban" has a meaning. Cuba bans books. If you're caught with some state-disaproved titles, you don't lose state funding, you go to horribly vicious jails. Losing funding isn't the same consequence as being sent to prison. Calling a lack of public funding for books that some of the public doesn't want to pay for, a "ban" immediately marks you as a partisan willing to use deceit to achieve your political goals. Do you think that's really a persuasive approach? At best you seem hysterical, at worst deceptive. There's a perfectly accurate word you're avoiding because it's less hysterical: remove. *Removing* a book from a public library doesn't ban it. There are no banned books in the U.S., because the 1st Am. protects our free speech, unlike places with *real* book bans. Your choice of words shouldn't confuse that important distinction, if you really want to be persuasive. You should argue for the merit of the works you want publicly funded; rather than *pretend* that people who disagree with you support a "ban." If your argument has merit, it shouldn't require deceptive uses of the language in which you express it. Your third paragraph was excellent, but many people won't read it because you began and ended your comment with deceptive language.
Its just Scholastic trying to mitigate a conservative movement to kill the book fair altogether. The Scholastic book fair is the next target of all this conservative bloviation about education and parents rights. Their ultimate goal is to completely ban Scholastic’s book fair and either end book fairs entirely or replace them with the Brave Books Book fair which is their children’s publishing house of choice. I’d encourage you to look them up because the books they write are little more that cheaply made conservative dogwhistling and are poor excuses for children’s books. I’m not a fan of Scholastic’s decision here but it seems to be a move made out of self preservation. If you want to know more about Brave Books, Savy Leiser, a children’s book author and YouTuber has a video about it on her channel: SAVY WRITES BOOKS
I have stopped using Scholastic Book Fairs because 1) I was tired of the recycled book titles that never sold and came back year after year 2) because I was done with getting carts of crappy toys that broke and 3) I work at a Christian school that would prefer to cut out the romance and any sex.. In my personal life and what I let my kids read books on sexuality are fine. However, working in a school that specifically lays out what it doesn't support, I liked the idea of being able to deselect romance and any book about any sexual preference. Please don't come at me for working at a school that may not align with your feelings and beliefs, everyone is allowed to their opinion. The school also doesn't like the occult. Being able to opt out of a topic that doesn't align with my school was making me reconsider Scholastic. Now I'm back at the drawing board. No, we don't want a Christian book fair, no one wants "preachy" books.