A Scholastic Book Fair is a pop-up event that promotes reading among school-aged children. The fairs offer a wide selection of books for all ages and abilities. The fairs also raise rewards that can be used to purchase free books and other resources for schools.
Scholastic Book Fairs:
- Promote reading among school-aged children
- Offer over 200 titles at every fair
- Accept all major credit cards, most tap-to-pay cards, Scholastic eGift cards, and cash
- Separate diverse titles, such as biographies of civil rights icon John Lewis and Supreme Court Justice
- Eligible to receive 25% cash profit or a split between Scholastic Dollars and cash for fairs with sales of $3,500 or above (less tax)
Scholastic Book Fairs are internationally accepted as an effective means to promote reading among school children. On this, people on either side of the political spectrum may now agree. Anti–book banners online thought Friday’s Scholastic press release was far from sufficient, calling the company’s position “craven,” “disgusting,” and “gutless.”
“I understand if a librarian needs to separate out certain books because displaying them will put them in danger,” wrote graphic novelist and Scholastic author Molly Knox Ostertag, in a much more understanding response than most. “But I fundamentally don’t think that is a call the publisher should be making for them.”
Scholastic’s down-the-middle response had such a harsh reception in part because its internet audience is made up of bookish people for whom loving the Scholastic Book Fair is a marker of identity and tribe. YouTube is full of Scholastic Book Fair nostalgia videos made by happy nerds who seem to get good viewership simply by remembering how it was.
Back in 2017, Vox ran an explainer on the “nostalgic joys of the Scholastic book fair,” citing a since-deleted tweet: “Marry someone who makes you feel the way you felt during scholastic book fair week in grade school.” Many of these people, I might gently suggest, have no memory of what a toy store the book fair actually can be.
I took a photo of my kindergartner’s book fair “wish list” last spring because it was so amazing. In careful handwriting, the aide who accompanied my 5-year-old around the fair preview filled out the list of “titles” she earmarked for purchase: “1. Mini backpack. 2. Bear highlighter pen. 3. Rainbow bookmark. 4. Jelly fish pen.” The litany of tchotchkes continued onto the back for 20 entries, containing not one single book.
(She ended up with a book with a mermaid necklace embedded on the cover.) In other words, the Scholastic Book Fair may be iconic, but for many reasons, it was already far from perfect.
