Scholastic has the rights to some (not all) of Usborne's titles. They are, however, not of the same quality as Usborne's books. I have First Encyclopedia of Seas & Oceans from both Usborne and Scholastic, and the Usborne version is nearly twice as thick as the Scholastic version. There are the same number of pages...the difference is in the quality of paper used.
The biggest difference between the two companies is that Scholastic has the rights to distribute multiple publisher's books, whereas Usborne's books are only distributed by Educational Development Corporation. That is why you won't find SpongeBob, Captain Underpants or Harry Potter at an Usborne book fair.
The solution to all that unwanted stuff is to simply not put it out. We don't put all the junk items out, although we do put some of it out to sell like the diarys and educational toys and craft stuff. Since we have a school store that is open once a month at the school, we do not feel the need to sell all all items that Scholastic sends (pens, pencils, bookmarks,etc...)
We always stress to the kids that they should put books down on their wish lists that they take home. Our bookfair helpers are instructed to label any item that is a non book item on the child's list that is sent home. We make sure there are books first. Then it is up to the parent to decide if they want their children to have a non book item. We ask the parents to circle the items that they want their child to have. Many times there are non book items and book items circled by the parent. We feel that we must give that choice to the parent.
I think Usborne is however, somehow connected to Scholastic. At out Spring Scholastic book fair there were quite a few Usborne books. So I am thinking that Usborne may be a division of scholastic.
We do Scholastics Books in the fall. We do not sell the pens, pencils, bookmarks, etc. We do the Usborne books in the spring. We make more $ on Scholastics because they are cheaper to buy, but Usborne books are of very good quality. They just cost a little extra. This was also our first time selling Usborne. We were very happy with our turnout.
