Great idea...anything that promotes reading. We have gone so far as to not put out the "junk" except at our family event. That way, money parents send into school with their child to buy books is spent on books. Parents buy their children trinkets if they want to at the family event.

Following on that theme of the kids choosing a READING book: we had been disappointed to see so many children come to the fair with money in hand and purchase the trinkets that Scholastic always sends. This last fair I came up with a promotion that really seemed to make a difference. When the child purchased a book, they got to pull a feather off the tail of this large bird I had drawn on poster board. Every feather had some sort of prize on the back(this was how I used my $100 in promotional funds). It really seemed to make a huge difference in how many books we sold in relation to how many kids just bought trinkets. We were very pleased!

Our school uses Scholastic and has a bookfair toward the beginning of school Oct-Nov and in March.
Scholastics program is easy to run, its all pretty much setup in potable shelves and then you just reorder(ours is a week long) at various times.
The PTA made quite a bit of $$ at the March one (not sure of $$ amount made, missed the mtg- sick kids)

We let the kids choose their own book -- within our guidelines: it must be a READING book on their reading level and it must be $5.00 or less before the 30% discount. Our attendance secretary prints out copies of each class roster and we keep track of who has gotten their book by writing the book price next to each name. This seems to work very well, especially with the kids who haven't brought in money for Book Fair...they still get to go home with a book.

I love the idea of buying the kids a book! Do you let them select the book or do you choose? Do you use a certificate for them to redeem or how do you keep track of who has got their book and who hasn't? We usually give our teachers an allottment to spend so they can add to their classroom libraries, and I use the promotional dollars that Scholastic gives us to have drawings for the kids, but I'll sure keep the book buying idea in mind for the next fair!

I have co-chaired book fairs @ our middle school for 2 years & elem. school for 5(!) years. We found that we sold the most books when we held Parent Night in conjunction with visitation or, better yet, Spring Carnival. Because our fundraisers do so well earlier in the year, we pass on the 30% discount to the kids and even buy each student in the Elem. school a book ($5 or less each.) This gets a lot of books into the kids' hands!