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Teachers wage war against Scholastic Book Club
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If your elementary years were spent anything like mine, you remember once a month being on the edge of your seat as you wanted for your order from the Scholastic Book Club to come in. You'd spend hours looking through the catalog deciding which books (and occasionally stickers) to buy.
And when they came, it was like Christmas in the classroom, especially for book nerds like my young 9-year-old self.
Well, sadly, it seems Scholastic has changed over the years. According to a 2008 review of Scholastic's catalogs, one-third of the items for sale now are either not books or books packaged with something else (such as toys and lip gloss). In addition, kids can also buy video games, jewelry, remote control cars and key chains (with tween icons like Hannah Montana pasted all over them).
And teachers aren't too happy about it.
The petition is part of larger movement called the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood, which is trying to "reclaim childhood from corporate marketers."
Here's to hoping Scholastic listens.
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I always ordered Weekly Reader for my kids, no matter what grade I taught. Sometimes I paid for them; sometimes my budget allowed it. I always had them take them home, and if the parents signed the backpage, the kids got a 100 daily grade in homework. Homework counted 10% and could make or break an A, B, C, or D. Once or twice a month we read and discussed the events.
May 27, 2009 at 5:43 p.m.How many of you had THE WEEKLY READER? We always enjoyed then. It'd be nice to read some of the current ones. Are they still around?
May 27, 2009 at 1:36 a.m.Memory fails but back in the dark ages it seems we were spared the book club extras.
May 27, 2009 at 1:31 a.m.Maybe there are getting ready to push out the Kindle to the kids.
May 26, 2009 at 5:23 p.m.That's sad, I enjoyed the books I got from Scholastic.
May 26, 2009 at 4:33 p.m.Oh, the Scholastic Book Club. Came second only to the once-a-year book fair at my school. But I don't remember much non-book merchandise in those tiny catalogs - maybe bookmarks or keychains once in a while. My how things change...
May 26, 2009 at 1:24 p.m.Gosh, I remember being a kid and eagerly looking through the Scholastic catalog for new books everytime I got one. Occasionally, I saw some non-book item that I wanted, but they were few and far between.
I saw someone's kid's Scholatic catalog about a year ago and looked through it because I hadn't seen one in many years and I was saddened to see that the "book club" I loved and knew from my childhood now sold considerably fewer books. I'm glad to hear that I'm not alone in my thinking and that some people are trying keep the "book club" more of an actual book club.
May 26, 2009 at 1:24 p.m.We recently ordered from Scholastic and yes, there was a ton of stuff in the catalog, but not very many books. In fact, I'm guilty of supporting this anti-book movement, we ordered a Goosebumps video game! We also ordered a book, I think, I can't remember, where is that book?
Good luck teachers, this is gonna be a hard battle to win.
May 26, 2009 at 1:09 p.m.