Barnes and Noble offers an alternative to Scholastic. You can find information on the B&N website at the bottom.
I personally have had no problem (knocking wood now) using Scholastic in the last 8 years that I have run a book fair. I truly think it depends on your representative and I have had a wonderful relationship with 2 of my reps. The current one is not in close proximity to me and we have only been working together for 4 months, so we haven't developed a rapport with him just yet.
For the group that's concerned about literacy, there are other ways of promoting it than just putting books in the library or even in the classroom. Perhaps your PTO could give books to every student. Our school has had several literacy programs this year aimed at early grades. The preschool and kindergarten teachers held a series of parent workshops to teach parents how to teach their kids to read. For one workshop, we received a bucket of magnetic letters (about $8 each, it had upper and lower case letters) In another workshop we received "keep" books, little books that the kindergartners could read themselves. The first grade teachers are putting together summer literacy bags, including some inexpensive books, magnetic letters from a dollar store, a journal, pencils, erasers, crayons or colored pencils. The first and second grade teachers bought materials for "literacy centers" in their rooms so that kids can work independently. The third grade teachers are putting together a summer packet for the kids and the kids who complete it will get a prize. We have a reading program every year, and every child who participates gets a little prize. Another option would be to have a visiting author come to the school. The PTO funds some of this, the rest was funded by some literacy grants the school received.
I think the parents are right to be literacy minded, I think it's perhaps the most important skill a child can learn in school, but it doesn't mean just books for the library, especially if the library is already well stocked. It's very important to work with the teachers because they have an overall impression of what the school and the students require.
Couldn't you build on the passion for literacy, but channel some of the funds differently than just books for the library? Technology and internet access are changing the face of today's librarys. Maybe expanding on those areas would be a nice compromise. What about sponsoring a program on community/parent literacy, remedial reading, etc.? Could you host some fine arts programs that tie to great works of literature or field trips with a related theme? In our school we need additional books for the actual classerooms (supplemental reading material) as well as the library. We recently bought Accelerated Reader for our school - a pretty substantial investment. It seems that if you put your heads together, there are probably lots of great ideas in the school to support/fund that still relate to literacy and literature. Good luck!
[This message has been edited by JHB (edited 05-20-2001).]
At our school we have some passionate lieteracy ladies. The last couple of years we have donated about $10,000 worth of books to the teachers and the library through two yearly book fairs. The teachers have expressed surprise that we are going all books. The librarian has stated she doesn't have room on the shelves for all the books. In fact the librarian has stated in front of a group of Moms that she will be donating some of the older books to other schools, because she doesn't have enough room for all the books. There is a group of parents that would like the money instead of the books, to be used for some other cause. I know this will be a heated battle come September between the two groups. As president I am concerned on how to handle this. both groups are very involved parents, and want the best for the kids. Any suggestions?
Our middle school started up book fairs again after years of not having them. We continue to use Scholastic. If we have one in the fall they give us a buy one get one free sale in the spring. They have been very accomodating sending specific books. We were not getting books for the lower grade levels and many purchase for younger ones, so they began sending us a nice collection of those. Our students also have required reading over the summer. We send Scholastic the list and they have been real good including some of those books for us. PTA runs it for the school, the school takes books not the money. They get so much more worth of books than they get cash.
