There is now enacted or pending legislation in more than 30 U.S. states prohibiting certain kinds of books from being in schools – mostly LGBTQIA+ titles and books that engage with the presence of racism in our country. Because Scholastic Book Fairs are invited into schools, where books can be purchased by kids on their own, these laws create an almost impossible dilemma: back away from these titles or risk making teachers, librarians, and volunteers vulnerable to being fired, sued, or prosecuted.
To continue offering these books, as well as even more high interest titles, we created an additional collection called Share Every Story, Celebrate Every Voice for our U.S. elementary school fairs. We cannot make a decision for our school partners around what risks they are willing to take, based on the state and local laws that apply to their district, so these topics and this collection have been part of many planning calls that happen in advance of shipping a fair.
Hi! was an elementary school librarian for 7 years and ran our school’s reading intervention program for 5 of those years. Now I work in a high school library with students who love to read and reluctant readers.
The books don’t matter. They really don’t. Some books can be silly, have tons of pictures, be a book of knock knock jokes, have world records, have everything you ever wanted to know about sharks, or be written in a journal-style like Diary of a Wimpy Kid (which are actually a 4th/5th grade reading level, depending on the book). As long as it gets kids reading, and ENJOYING reading, it really doesn’t fucking matter what it is. If they enjoy it, they’ll continue to read and their tastes in what they read will change and grow with them. Parents’ and teachers’ biggest job is to get them reading, no matter what it is. The absolute WORST thing you can do for children’s literacy is to be a book snob. Some of my most successful growth in readers has been the kids who go home and play Roblox because they have to be able to read and type in chat in order to interact with their friends.
Now if you want to talk about Scholastic book binding, we could absolutely talk about how quickly they fall apart (though the books are usually 1/2 of the price they are at Barnes and Noble, which again, makes them more accessible). ALL BOOKS HAVE MERIT, even the ones I think are dumb.