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Three thoughts about this lively take on Scholastic book fairs.
1) Do you have memories of school-based Scholastic book fairs? As a home schooled student, I remember a version of this where we got to circle all of the books we wanted and how incredibly EXCITING that was. But that would be different from the school-based version. Please share!
2) The author has an excellent point: this was always a commercial enterprise, so let's not surround the past manifestations of the commercial enterprise with rosy nostalgia.
3) Isn't *choice* the real intoxicant here? As a young reader, I delighted in the opportunity to pick exactly what I wanted, without anyone criticizing or deep-sixing my preferences. This makes me reflect on my current reading choices. For example, I felt a little apologetic about including a Dick Francis title on my last reading roundup. He's not a critical darling, after all, and I worried that I'd be judged. But I really like reading Dick Francis. Wasn't one of the Scholastic Book Fair appeals that anything in the catalog was fair game, even if it was...lowbrow?
As always, I'm interested to hear your thoughts. Do please read the whole piece (linked) if you can.
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Oh, Scholastic Book Fair. If you made your way through a public school in North America anytime during the past half-century, you should recall that shiny catalog. That sudden, circus-like presence in the school library.
On Monday, the critic Michelle Cyca argued as much in an evocative piece for The Walrus. Cyca remembered the fair, with its order forms and Animorphs box sets, as a key Millennial touchstone. But when her young daughter brought a current catalog home, sorrow usurped nostalgia.
Cyca was distressed to note that many of today’s fair offerings are mere “extensions of toy or TV franchises,” like Lego, Pokémon, or Paw Patrol. What’s worse, these offerings seem “to be marketing themselves not on the merits of imaginative storytelling but on their proximity to more stimulating entertainments.”
...In addition to fanning a love of reading, the fair has always claimed a fiscal purpose. In North America, it offers a supplemental funding pipeline for under-resourced schools. A Scholastic rep told Fox 13 that book fairs have helped raise more than $2 billion for American schools in the last decade alone.
Hard yums to yuck, in this economy. Even if the quality in the stacks has been compromised. But to Cyca, that earlier fair was most important for its purity.
“The order form elicited a buzz of permissible, wholesome consumerism,” she wrote, of the famous catalog. “[A]nd I loved the freedom of penciling in my choices after careful deliberation: Animorphs, Scott O’Dell novels, R.L. Stine series that would give me nightmares for weeks.”
Like a Proustian madeleine, I remember those Animorphs. But as another piece of IP that spawned its own TV drama, I’m inclined to question my instinct to distinguish K.A. Applegate’s series from the Paw Patrol or Minecraft novels—at least on the object level....
When it comes to the thing of the Scholastic Book Fair, I’m personally still on the fence. There’s good, there’s schlock, there’s capitalism. Maybe it was always the exact same fraught frenzy. And it’s just us readers who are finally growing up.
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lithub.com/have-they-ruined-our-beloved-scholastic-book-fair/
2 hours ago
![Three thoughts about this lively take on Scholastic book fairs.
1) Do you have memories of school-based Scholastic book fairs? As a home schooled student, I remember a version of this where we got to circle all of the books we wanted and how incredibly EXCITING that was. But that would be different from the school-based version. Please share!
2) The author has an excellent point: this was always a commercial enterprise, so lets not surround the past manifestations of the commercial enterprise with rosy nostalgia.
3) Isnt *choice* the real intoxicant here? As a young reader, I delighted in the opportunity to pick exactly what I wanted, without anyone criticizing or deep-sixing my preferences. This makes me reflect on my current reading choices. For example, I felt a little apologetic about including a Dick Francis title on my last reading roundup. Hes not a critical darling, after all, and I worried that Id be judged. But I really like reading Dick Francis. Wasnt one of the Scholastic Book Fair appeals that anything in the catalog was fair game, even if it was...lowbrow?
As always, Im interested to hear your thoughts. Do please read the whole piece (linked) if you can.
**
Oh, Scholastic Book Fair. If you made your way through a public school in North America anytime during the past half-century, you should recall that shiny catalog. That sudden, circus-like presence in the school library.
On Monday, the critic Michelle Cyca argued as much in an evocative piece for The Walrus. Cyca remembered the fair, with its order forms and Animorphs box sets, as a key Millennial touchstone. But when her young daughter brought a current catalog home, sorrow usurped nostalgia.
Cyca was distressed to note that many of today’s fair offerings are mere “extensions of toy or TV franchises,” like Lego, Pokémon, or Paw Patrol. What’s worse, these offerings seem “to be marketing themselves not on the merits of imaginative storytelling but on their proximity to more stimulating entertainments.”
...In addition to fanning a love of reading, the fair has always claimed a fiscal purpose. In North America, it offers a supplemental funding pipeline for under-resourced schools. A Scholastic rep told Fox 13 that book fairs have helped raise more than $2 billion for American schools in the last decade alone.
Hard yums to yuck, in this economy. Even if the quality in the stacks has been compromised. But to Cyca, that earlier fair was most important for its purity.
“The order form elicited a buzz of permissible, wholesome consumerism,” she wrote, of the famous catalog. “[A]nd I loved the freedom of penciling in my choices after careful deliberation: Animorphs, Scott O’Dell novels, R.L. Stine series that would give me nightmares for weeks.”
Like a Proustian madeleine, I remember those Animorphs. But as another piece of IP that spawned its own TV drama, I’m inclined to question my instinct to distinguish K.A. Applegate’s series from the Paw Patrol or Minecraft novels—at least on the object level....
When it comes to the thing of the Scholastic Book Fair, I’m personally still on the fence. There’s good, there’s schlock, there’s capitalism. Maybe it was always the exact same fraught frenzy. And it’s just us readers who are finally growing up.
**
https://lithub.com/have-they-ruined-our-beloved-scholastic-book-fair/](https://scontent-iad3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/825292655_1630312481791725_5669242508626507907_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_p720x720_tt6&_nc_cat=103&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=Q2V3e1p-ZJcQ7kNvwHESvZo&_nc_oc=AdpMJV82nG5lH5Bo9-Tu21wolQg_RU1TVFgQURctRXLLJJ8iDbJraXTirmW1PPzoxFI&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-2.xx&edm=AKIiGfEEAAAA&_nc_gid=cH7vh_xIVKU0gStUVE9T6A&_nc_tpa=Q5bMBQKqm9tX0TezTczI_mRmiBTb_9D5JwZSNssQZZ_sf5Afx0_BvoMkZ-2soor37g_vccEN964gt7gHRQ&oh=00_AQI4R7gtpcFrxLlYCjWJtrUKxhU0UXac7b6tZSPHaWCNxw&oe=6ABDEF3D)
I literally felt better about my life (and my Goodreads) when I read your last book roundup! I teach great books, I love classics and other thoughtful works, and I mostly avoid “twaddle,” but I write genre fiction and sometimes I just enjoy a fun read.
I don't remember fairs in the 70s, but we got the order forms. Big day when the books came in! When we began homeschooling I set up an account so we could get the catalogs and order.
It was always a mixed bag. I was introduced to the Narnia books in Scholastic paperback editions (which I still have) as well as some other really great children's literature. Plus a lot of Garfield comic strip collections. But the commercial junk was always present as well.
The books were mixed. I always found it confusing because there was a public library with that sort of book for free. There was a school library with that sort of stuff for free. There were multiple bookstores with these books for the same price. The draw was to buy for the school fundraiser aspect which is actually pretty controversial morally. I remember reading in some states, fundraising money had to be distributed evenly across school in a district or the county or possibly the state because poorer districts could just defund the public schools through lowering taxes and make up the difference through fundraisers. The good of allowing children to choose their own books can happen in many ways. I don’t imagine this fundraiser as being very effective. I also don’t like the financial disparities of students being on display like the fairs. It seems to fall short in every category while being a commercial company in schools.
It has always been that way. You were just too young to notice when you were a kid.
I didn't have any money for the catalogue or for the Scholastic Book Fair as we were pretty poor growing up, I wish there was a way for all students to be included in the excitement. My children are in public school now and they don't visit the Book Fair during the school day, it is twice a year during Parent Teacher Conferences. I have fun letting my kids pick out a book or two. I'm a children's librarian so it is rare we purchase books as Mum is back and forth from the library almost daily and can put anything they want on hold to be sent to my work.
Yes, it was always mixed. There were definitely books I wasn't allowed from that catalog and my mom was very against TV tie-in products so it was probably those.
As a kid I loved the book fair and always volunteered when my oldest was in school. My mom used to get Chinaberry catalogs and I absolutely loved getting those in and picking out books. I think reading, like life, needs a balance. It’s ok to read just for entertainment. To me that just fosters a love of the written word.
I deeply loved the book fair in school and enjoyed volunteering when my daughter was in elementary school as well. Of course, there is the merch overload, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the offerings expanded to included a wider range of authors and people of color on the covers in recent years. My daughter did go alone in Kindergarten and bought a princess book that she read the entirety of in the backseat on the way home from school. She was disappointed because it was short and disappointing. We had an interesting conversation about making thoughtful choices for our reading that she still remembers. So yes, a "waste" of that money, but she learned the experience in a way she would not have if I was with her.
My husband and I are both 58 and do not remember having Scholastic Book Fairs in school and we went to school in different states. We did order from the flyers and I loved that. I liked reading the summaries and selecting books. I think there was a mix of junk reading and more quality works. As a teacher and parent I interacted with the Fairs. Eh. A lot of junk. I do have a lot of Big Books that I purchased with Scholastic points as a teacher and I love using them for read alouds.
I want to weigh in on our current hostilities.
No, not the American military against Iran: the White House against the American media.
In case you’ve been under a rock, President Trump has barred CNN, MS NOW (previously MSNBC), and Politico from their long-standing place in the White House television press pool (a system that’s been in place since the early 1940s), because he disagrees with their coverage of his administration.
A First Amendment lawsuit is pending, so we’ll see how this plays out.
In the meantime, let me offer my small-potatoes take on the best way to respond to negative public coverage/comments/criticism.
I am not the president of the United States. (Yet.)
(THAT was a joke)
But I’m also no stranger to public, often stinging, often negative, and in my view, often inaccurate coverage. My first book came out in 1996. Since then, I’ve been called a fundamentalist, a communist, a socialist, a right-wing fanatic, a fake historian with a religious agenda, a radical feminist, a Christian nutcase, and a few other things that I can’t be bothered to resurrect at this late date.
There are three ways that someone with a public profile can respond to negative coverage from journalists, reviewers, news sites, and random loudmouths on social media sites.
First, and probably the right choice 90% of the time, you can ignore it and carry on with your work. That’s primarily what we’re called to do: Our work. if you carry on with what you’re meant to be doing, and if that work is meaningful, the negative and positives will shake themselves out. It’s difficult to ignore the negatives. Ignoring them is, generally speaking, the only way to keep doing your meaningful work. Otherwise, you get caught in a spiralling reaction system and the work goes away because all of your energy is being spent on the reactions.
Second, you can push back privately. Sometimes this is a necessary correction. A couple of years ago, a well-known journalist writing for a major evangelical Christian publication put out an opinion piece in which he described me as a “right wing culture warrior.” I don’t do culture wars, and, given the platform, I didn’t feel like I could ignore that. I contacted him, sent him the specific reasons why I felt this was an unfair characterization, and asked him to reconsider. He sent me back a quite snotty response (“mansplaining” comes to mind) which began with all of his academic qualifications. (I also have some of those.) I responded, politely, that none of his qualifications made the characterization accurate, but that if he and his organization chose to stand behind the phrase, I would be happy to publish my own thoughts on why it was 100% wrong.
The piece disappeared the next day. I don’t know who made that decision, but clearly someone with more authority than the journalist had a look at the essay and recognized the problem.
Third, you can object publicly—by providing actual information showing why the assertions made in the coverage are incorrect. When you’re dealing with opinion pieces, this is often not easy to do. At that point, you should revert to the first strategy.
You know what doesn’t generally work?
Yelling that everyone who criticizes you is unfair and biased and refusing to speak to them. Name calling instead of offering substantive rebuttals. Going on the offensive and shutting down access. Putting all your energies into the coverage instead of into your job.
And that’s just from me, the private citizen.
www.cbsnews.com/news/presidential-tv-pool-suspended-trump-ban-cnn/
www.nytimes.com/2026/09/21/opinion/trump-journalists-ban-white-house.html?unlocked_article_code=1...
Opinion | Trump Is Attacking Press Freedom and Disregarding the Law. Again. (Gift Article)
www.nytimes.com
The new ban continues Mr. Trump’s attempt to prevent the free flow of information in American society.4 days ago
I would vote for you.
Excellent points! Both sides of the aisle should be concerned about the implications of this and the first amendment!
Yeah I’ve had my share of negative press too but your words are wise here… sometimes just keep moving and working.
Fourth option: remove privileged access to those who abuse the opportunity to be physically on the White House grounds, and allow others who won't abuse that privilege the opportunity. Nobody's right to publish what they want has been taken away. What has been taken away is the presumption that they can do so from within the White House. That's a privilege that carries a responsibility. It is not a right. The SCOTUS has ruled that it is not a right previously.
I knew there was a reason that the one time I purchased a homeschool curriculum book of yours for our children, I did not like it. Made it through two chapters before burning it.
Right to the point as usual. Wonderful. All anyone ever asks is proof of facts and no trying to to hide the truth with false accusations!
Well said!
Thank you for taking the time for this. As always, I’m grateful to add your thoughts to what’s circulating in my head - but especially on topics that are unnecessarily framed as oppositional in nature. Besides, as Nicole has always said, “The more you know, the better the jokes.”
THIS. I mean, all of it, but especially the part about objecting publicly with facts. Shrieking that the coverage is false doesn't make it so. If the truth is on your side, shout THAT from the rooftops, not ad hominem attacks and unsubstantiated accusations of falsehoods. Also, for what it's worth, when I homeschooled my kids, they learned about John Peter Zenger.
It’s inconceivable what is happening!!! 🤯 Thank you sharing your thoughts!!
I would hope someone at some point will discuss the difference between “rights” and “privilege”. It is amazing how varied a story can be told by two different people exposed to the same information at the same time. Then, these same people, come out of their press seat, and write two diametrically opposed stories using an answer given at a press conference, which was televised and aired to the public. Those who blatantly lie or twist an answer so maliciously shouldn’t have a “right” to take up space in the press room. They can hear the press conference and report from the live feed. Some of those reporters reprimanded are verbally contentious, and redirect questions which downright attack the current President and the current government. I say their misbehavior is a matter of national security, whether or not those reporters actively and openly own their nefarious practices. They are quia distraction, when trying to get the facts of the story. It seems they are only there to throw daggers and get kudos from their network producers. Being a reporter and disseminating truth is a huge responsibility, and should be taken seriously. Those who are there to throw gotcha questions should be looked upon as the unserious jokesters they portend. As it is now, they are collecting feathers in their caps and attaboys for trying to trip up the news cycle, trying to create news. They are just getting points from their own networks, but their behavior is not at all demonstrating a serious investigative journalist.
Obama did the same thing to Fox News in 2009. THE VERY SAME THING. Did that bother you? Or do you even remember it?
Often the media is completely wrong. Even with local personal interest kind of stories. I can't stand any of the outlets. I wish there was something we could listen to and get middle of the road, reasonable news.
Hi! 📚 We’re currently putting together our September–November Author Showcase and would love to consider featuring your work with our reading community. If you’re interested, feel free to DM us, and we’ll be happy to share the details. We’d love to connect!
I totally forgot to do my reading roundup at the end of August, so here it is, a little late.
Odd set of books last month, and more disappointment than I’d hoped for. Physical books first:
Jennifer Weiner, BIG SUMMER. This was another airport purchase. (Must be really good for your royalties to have your book out front at airport bookshops, as that’s typically where I buy big soapy novels in hardback that otherwise I’d never pick up.) After my less-than-stellar experience with Weiner’s THE GRIFFIN SISTERS’ GREATEST HITS, I thought I’d give her another try. BIG SUMMER will be my last venture for a while. It can’t decide whether it’s a romance, a mystery, or something else, and I had to flog myself into finishing the last third. Also I’m finding that Weiner’s narrators are becoming more or less indistinguishable from each other.
Harlan Coben, PLOT TWIST. I don’t usually buy “how to write” books, and I’m not a Coben reader. But I heard an interview with him about the book which was smart and interesting, so I ordered it. Not my cup of tea. The advice is simplistic and the writing style sets my teeth on edge. On the other hand, every time I put it down, I had the unexplained impulse to go back and work on my own novel some more, so I guess it had some useful side effect.
John Samuel Harphan, THE INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS OF AMERICAN SLAVERY. This bleeds over a bit into my work life, since I’m doing some history work in this direction, but it was an excellent read on its own. The central conundrum for Harphan is how English and American thinkers who prized freedom so highly were able to reconcile this with the massively-scaled slavery industry in the seventeenth century. The primary intellectual gymnastic was to recast all of Africa as a place where life was so wretched and the people so debased that any other fate was preferable to living on that continent. Sadly, I saw quite a bit of this rhetoric when I did my post on the Equal Earth map changes. It’s alive and well.
Ian McEwan, ATONEMENT. This is a reread for me; I’d been thinking about this book because of another essay I’m writing, and I hadn’t read it for twenty years. The reread did not disappoint. There are so many layers to this story—and the prose is so very lovely.
Madeline Miller, CIRCE. I’ve had this one sitting on my shelf for quite a while and finally pulled it off. It has its moments, and the writing is lyrical. But it mostly seemed to me like a retread of Lewis’s TIL WE HAVE FACES, minus any of the insightful spiritual observations or a central character that I actually liked.
And as for ebooks:
Charlie Kirk, THE MAGA DOCTRINE. Yes, that’s part of my ongoing effort to read books I’m pretty sure I won’t agree with, and I could borrow it for free on Kindle. Kirk lost me pretty early on, when he compared Elon Musk to Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers, and Jonas Salk (“These sorts of people, and the divine creative spark they display, are the foundation of American greatness.” That would be Elon Musk’s divine creative spark, just to confirm). But I persisted until I got to this, “While Trump works to avoid the flare-up of total war with Iran, Mitt Romney, regarded by many of the “Never Trump” establishment Republicans as a voice of moderation and respectability, vowed in the early stages of his failed 2012 presidential campaign to take ‘military action’ against Iran to stop its nuclear program if elected—not merely if a crisis arose, simply if elected. A vote for Romney was a vote for war.” That was written by Kirk in 2020. It hasn’t aged well.
Dick Francis, BANKER. I needed a fun horse book for airplane reading. This hit all the requirements—horses, interesting subplot involving the narrator’s day job, a mystery, a hero in peril, and a tidy resolution. I haven’t read Dick Francis for a long time and I might go back and do some relaxing revisiting.
6 days ago
Welp. I *loved* Circe. Admittedly, I am not a very critical reader, and I know that. But now I’ll have to find a copy of Til We Have Faces and see for myself!
Something in particular bothered me about Circe: for a book that was supposedly meant to center women in their stories, the last quarter of the story was obsessed with a man (Odysseus). I've always been a fan of Odysseus, despite his moral failings, and even I was thinking, "Give me a break."
Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach made me so mad I actually stopped reading (adult) fiction for a decade. Well written, absolutely, but I couldn't handle the level of unresolved trauma and unnecessary tragedy. It's become a core experience for me and how I interact with fiction and my own writing.
I was meh about Circe. Till We Have Faces and LeGuin’s Lavinia are just so superior, other myth retellings feel like chrome to their gold.
I often wonder if we would be engaged in Iran if Charlie Kirk hadn’t been assassinated. I think he was a positive influence on Trump.
I had completely forgotten about Dick Francis! I am adding his books to my list for fun reading!
I noticed you slipped in the little bit about writing a novel! How wonderful. Consider it pre-ordered. 😎
This is helpful. Ty!
I just started Ian McEwan’s What We Can Know, and you’re absolutely right about his way with layering and lovely prose.
Hmmm … I have Circe sitting in my audible library … more a should read vs a want to read … but I’ve been eyeing it and intending to try it this fall. We’ll see how I do. Should reads are tough reads for me to start …
Dick Francis, especially his older books, are my comfort reads. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the others.
Lessons by McEwan was one of my favorites last year. Read Saturday this year. Always a good thoughtful read.
Banker was the first dick francis book I read - it was a book of the month selection in the early 1970s. I downsized books recently and it was one of the few francis books i kept.
Love Dick Francis novels for a fun read
The audiobook for Circe is amazing if anyone needs a good car book.
I totally agree with you about Circe. Forgetable.
From Google AI: Elon Musk is a prominent entrepreneur who has driven major advancements in electric vehicles, private spaceflight, and technology through companies like SpaceX and Tesla. Major Business Ventures and InnovationsSpaceX: Founded in 2002, it achieved the first privately-funded liquid-fueled rocket to reach orbit (Falcon 1 in 2008), pioneered reusable orbital rockets, and developed the Dragon spacecraft for NASA missions. Tesla: Joined as an early investor in 2004 and served as CEO since 2008, transforming the global automotive industry toward sustainable electric transport with vehicles like the Roadster, Model S, and a global network of factories. PayPal (X.com): Co-founded the early online financial services and e-payment company, which sold to eBay in 2002. Zip2: Co-founded his first software company in 1995, providing online city guides for newspapers before its sale in 1999. Other Ventures: Co-founded Neuralink for brain-computer interfaces and founded The Boring Company for tunnel construction, alongside launching xAI.Key Recognition Named Time Magazine and Financial Times Person of the Year in 2021. Elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2022 for breakthroughs in reusable launch vehicles and sustainable systems. And you don’t think he’s comparable to Edison?
Hillary Clinton is on video saying the same concerning Iran. In fact- she said she would OBLITERATE THEM. Her words. Look it up. And she spoke again and again about deporting illegals - as did Obama and Chuck Schumer. What changed their tune?
