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Teachers wage war against Scholastic Book Club
By AprillBrandon in Pop Goes the Culture
May 26, 2009

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.

In fact, teachers across the country are signing a petition to put the book back in the Scholastic books clubs.

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.