Why Buy Books from Scholastic Book Fairs?

Yes, it's a fundraiser for the school. Not only do they get a percentage of the sales but the teachers and school library can earn free books as well.

It is a major fundraiser for the school.

Overpriced, yes, but the school gets a percentage and the library gets new books.

You don't have to spend much money to participate in helping the school.

Yes, its a fundraiser. Everything is cheaper on Amazon! lol. I buy a couple books per kid to support the school, and the kids get all excited to go to their school "store" and pick something.

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Dawn does a great job explaining the benefits. I would add, there is the benefit of the kids getting excited about the book fair as an event. My daughter really looks forward to it from year to year. The kids get reinforcment that books are wonderful and belong in their hands and their homes.

That said...I wish Scholastic would not carry so many books that are just tie-ins to TV shows and movies. Scholastic carries some good literature and popular books, sometimes at good prices, but too much of its stock is cotton-candy junk aimed at promoting TV and movies, in my opinion. I guess if it gets a kid to pick up a book who wouldn't otherwise do so, that's good overall, but I've been disappointed in much of their catalog for a few years now.

Yes, they do.....
Here are some of the programs in which your school might participate:
http://www.scholastic.com/bookfairs/experience/

And you have to remember, not every child comes from a family that will order books on line or take them to a bookstore...the book fairs make it easy to get the books into the hands of all kids. They have books as low as $1.

The school gets 40% of sales. That's A LOT of money. Also the school can take some of the profit in books instead of cash and can double their profits that way. We keep a certain budgeted amount for our PTA fund (usually about $1000) and then any overage (last year it was $300) was converted to more than $600 in books that the librarian was able to choose from the scholastic web site for our library. We paid about $50 for shipping but that was a really, really good deal.

For our school, they get a percentage of the total sales from the fair.

I agree with you that the prices are usually cheaper elsewhere - but it does help the school....

I just checked my PTA budget projections for this year, which are usually very conservative. We hold two book fairs a year and in the fall we expect to make at least $1500, and $750 in the spring. That's money, not books. We do get a certain amount of free books as incentive for holding two fairs. And we always feature a free dessert night at the end, which has become a great community event.

It's true you won't find all the classic literature titles, but there are amazing chapter books that kids need to blow through, as well as the best array of easy readers for the little ones learning to read. Plus gift books, reference, humor, and all sorts of interesting titles that kids wouldn't even know existed. I think it's fantastic -- anything that gets kids excited to read is OK in my book.

Yep, but not sure how much. I'm an admitted Amazon addict, but I do occasionally order from Scholastic, just placed an order last week in fact.

I remember getting the fliers when I was in school and getting SO excited about the possibility of getting a new book. I absolutely loved book orders. I think the more books the better, and I want my sons to be excited about reading, so I'm in favor of Scholastic book orders and book fairs in general. They have plenty of stuff I'd never buy, but they also have some great books.

It helps the school and its library.
It benefits the school, thus is benefits the school that your child attends.
So for me, I buy book from Scholastic for that reason and I also love scholastic books.
It helps your child's school.
That is a good reason.

Because it helps out your kids' school.

At our school, the book fair benefits the school library. They get free books based on the amount of money the fair makes.

Yes they do from the book fairs,if you order from catalogs that are sent home they receive more if you order from online than sending it in.These books are outrages in price.

Sometimes they have the coolest stuff that you dont think you will find anywhere else. And then you have the kids begging. It's hard to resist. I have a strict NO policy, but I see the appeal.

Yes, the school gets a percentage, if you use an order form, sometimes the kids get a little prize (right?). I tend to do that though, write the book title down and get them off amazon or half price books on the expensive ones, and then let my kids pick out the cheaper books to buy from the fair.

They get a cut, I'm trying to figure out how MUCH.

Sometimes it easier/cheaper to just DONATE the money.

I do not. The amount of corporate promotion, movie promotion etc in their materials is in my mind completely inappropriate.

Your school earns money from the sales and kids get encouraged to read when they get to pick out a new book ~ two "win-wins" in my book.

Our school uses it as one of their fund raisers. And the kids always love it. We try to get something from them each time if we can.

I volunteer at our school's book fair. Yes, it benefits the school. The book fair chair people at your school should be able to explain how it works and how exactly the school benefits from it.

It is a school fundraiser.

Scholastic books are good, and children see other children in school get them, to me it's just part of elementry school. J.

Yes, you can buy many of the books cheaper elsewhere, but there are some good deals to be found. Also, most schools will have a full price book fair in the fall and then in the spring have a discounted (buy one get one free) sale. Some schools will do both fairs as 25% off.

Scholastic offers all kinds of programs and incentives. Although I worked closely with our bookfair chairperson for years, I don't know many of the details. Our fairs actually earned very little cash money, but the school got lots of books for the classrooms and the libraries. The teachers can also get some supplies they may need.

Scholastic offers many options. You should talk with the chairperson of the book fair to learn how it's directly helping your school.

Schools earn free books for the library when you purchase from the book fair. That's the only reason schools do them. Also, if you purchase from a book order, the classroom teacher can choose free books for the class. I've earned probably about 400 free books for my classroom library this way!