Books for sale, too

Now that I’ve come out against selling teachers as prizes at school auctions, I have to put this out there, too. Let’s stop peddling books to children in schools.

What? Stop promoting literacy? Have I lost my mind? No, I’m not talking about encouraging kids to develop a lifelong learning for books. Who’s not for that? Instead, I’m talking about an elitist, blatantly commercial tradition that arrives like the robin at many schools come spring. I’m talking about the Book Fair.

For the uninitiated, the annual book fair is ostensibly all about raising money for the school, vital funds that go toward filling the library shelves with new titles and the classrooms with new tools. It gives students the “opportunity” to enter new worlds with brand new books that they can purchase with their very own money and share with their families and friends.

Wonderful. What’s not to like?

Well, here’s the thing. At our school, the library is closed for a week, transformed into a store manned by well-meaning parent volunteers who man cash registers that go ka-ching, ka-ching. Instead of having their regularly scheduled library time where they hear a story and borrow a book, students are trotted through the library-cum-mini-mall. Those with willing parents come prepared with a pocketful of cash. Those with parents who refrain from sending their kids to school with crisp bills are invited to make “Wish Lists,” and they can beg their parents to return with them later to fulfill those dreams.

I’ve taken my kids to our school’s book fair, and let me tell you, the atmosphere is thick with desire. Kids are everywhere, pulling titles off the shelves and begging for the latest Clone Wars “classic.” Desperate parents with tense looks on their faces are reluctantly pulling out credit cards and checkbooks, looking at their watches as they try to come up with excuses to get their kids out of their before they spend all the grocery money. It’s like a frantic Turkish bazaar, with bargains being struck at every corner (“Mom, please, I’ll make my bed every day for a week, I promise!). This isn’t about the joy of reading. It’s about the pressure of spending, and it’s a struggle not to get caught up in it.

The wares are a mixed bag. Sure, there are plenty of classics available for those with ready cash, but the shelves are also filled with commercial junk, the read-once-and-throw-on-the-floor spinoffs from television shows like SpongeBob and Pokemon. You can imagine what a typical first- or second-grade boy is going to gravitate toward in the sea of shelves, and it ain’t “Huckleberry Finn.”

I know, I know, the Book Fair is a time-honored tradition. I know, it encourages children to own and cherish their own books. But what about the kid whose parent can’t afford to buy some of these books? That student is made to feel like the kid that Santa forgot on Christmas morning. That child misses a chance to do what he or she ought to be doing in the library, and that is borrowing a book.

The book fair is coercive. It’s commercial. It sets kids up for disappointment. And it’s a tradition that ought to be stopped.