This week my daughter, ever the proud kindergartener, pulled from her backpack a pulpy red-bordered catalog that I recognized instantly. It was her first Scholastic Book Club catalog. Book order time.
I can remember so clearly how excited I was when those catalogs arrived. It was the beginning of my book lust. It’s probably why parents like me have such a high degree of trust for Scholastic. We grew up with it.
But the last few times those red lined catalogs have come home with one or the other of my school aged kids, I’ve felt a little tug of something else.
For a big corporation, Scholastic has an admirable mission statement, but it is nonetheless a big corporation, publicly held, (NASD; SCHL), and it has an obligation to its shareholders to make money, just like Exxon, just like Phillip Morris (I know, I know – Altira). And it does make a lot of money. It has a market capitalization of $1.5 billion and made $68 million in reported profits last fiscal year. Book clubs are only one part of their very large business. Scholastic is online, multi-media and, oh, by the way, the American publishers of the Harry Potter series.
And what an amazing concession they have. They have almost unfettered access to kids in the school setting, and are given at least tacit if not overt approval of teachers. It's a marketer's dream.
And overall Scholastic does a good job of not messing up a good thing. They offer lots of great titles at affordable prices. A recent catalog offered one of our favorites A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon for $1.95. The same edition is $5.99 on Amazon. These are exactly the kind of titles that I would expect Scholastic to put in the hands of kids.
Unfortunately it's not all Newberry winners and Beatrtix Potter between the pages of Scholastic's Book Club catalogs. There has been a commercial creep over the last few years that I find really disappointing. The number of corporate, branded and/or product linked titles have proliferated: Lego's Bionicle, SpongeBob and other Nickelodeon books, and lots of PBS characters (one sacred cow at a time, please).
Any book catalog distributed at a school should be as free from corporate adverspam as is possible in our adverspammed world.
Even worse is the junk. Cheaply made "educational" toys and trinkets litter the pages of Scholastic catalogs. Electronic organizers, spy kits, and other bric a brac catch my son's eye on every page. It distracts kids, especially those kids that aren't enthusiastic readers, and draws them away from the books. I once allowed my oldest son to buy one of these items (trying, trying to get him to read). It was broken within seconds of arriving home.
Were these things in the Scholastic catalogs of our youth? I just remember the books.
Scholastic Book Clubs are still a good resource for reasonably priced books, and one way to increase your child’s interest and enthusiasm for books and reading. The catalogs have, however, become a bit of a commercial marketplace with advertising masquerading as publishing, and cheap trinkets pretending to be educational toys. Scholastic Book Clubs should clean up their act.
What do you think about Scholastic? Do you buy from them? Do you trust them?
Clay Nichols, Health Correspondent:
Clay’s column, Dadventure, published twice monthly to Gather Essentials: Health, is a sure-fire guide to raising flawless, perfectly behaved, and always obedient children. Yeah, right.
Clay is the co-author of Filmmaking for Teens: Pulling Off Your Shorts, an award-winning playwright, and the Chief Creative Officer at DadLabs.com, a fatherhood website.
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Clay Nichols
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January 12, 2007 Parents to Scholastic Book Clubs: Keep it Real
February 14, 2007 10:30 AM EST
(Updated: February 14, 2007 10:33 AM EST)
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Comments: 40
Seems like that's the way it should be
I have and do buy from them. It is a great way to sit down with daughter and decide which books she wants to read without being overwhelmed by the HUGE lists online. I also take her to the used book store sometimes to pick things that she can skim through before buying.
I am going to have to go look up what and how much they give back to the school. I am not sure if I will still buy from them when my other kids start school. I will have my younger 3 children all in highschool at the same time, with them being so close in age I do not want to be buying 3 or more things at the same time every time these catalogs come out. I most likely will just find a good bookstore to shop from than.
Allow me to clarify, there aren't ads for toys -- toys are offered alongside books as choices in the catalog. They try to pick things that could loosely be termed educational. They like a low price point, so some of the products they offer are of questionable quality.
"Get FREE books and learning materials with BONUS POINTS!
— You'll earn at least one BONUS POINT for every dollar your class spends. Plus, special monthly promotions allow you to earn EXTRA BONUS POINTS from every Club catalog.
— Redeem your BONUS POINTS for any item from your monthly club catalog.
You'll be surprised at how quickly your classroom fills up with FREE books!
Choose a FREE BOOK each month your class orders!
— As a new teacher, not only will you earn Bonus Points every time you order, you'll get a FREE BOOK each month when you use your Library Builder Card.
— You'll receive your Library Builder Card in the box with your first order.
Building your classroom library has never been easier!"
I could not find a points list to see convert to dollars. I think you have to be a registered teacher to see all that.
I think whether they make a lot of money off of this or not, seems like a good program.
They also did a charity where they donated a million books afte rso many classrooms did 100 hours of reading. That is listed on their website.
http://www.scholastic.com/
It's so cute when they pay her for their order in pennies, dimes, nickels... they save their pennies for their orders!
I don't know of anything they give back to the school itself, but my partner racks up the points quickly, and then uses them to buy books for her classroom library occasionally (usually poetry or history books that she uses in the curriculum), but mostly uses them to get every child a paperback book for Christmas (which they love--we choose the books carefully and everyone gets something different). She only uses her points to get things for the kids or classroom, but really a teacher could use them for her/himself.
When it comes to commercialized stuff, like Spongebob, I don't mind seeing that stuff either. When it comes down to it, my kids don't get that stuff, because I've always been able to get my children interested in other readings. But, I feel as my mother-in-law does... if it gets a kid reading then ok. My mother-in-law bought my husband and his brothers all kinds of comics just because it was the only way to get them to read. So... who are we to judge what other parents might chose for their children and why?
After the kind of endorsement offered by Elizabeth E. how can we object to what Scholastic has to offer teachers in exchange for the marketing opportunity?
We hold the line that this is a BOOK club order, and if we're going to order anything, it's going to be books. We use the same party line at school book fairs, which are also Scholastic books, at least in our schools.
Clay- I talked to an early learning teacher and she said alot of times by 4 years old preschool girls have the basic concept of words and are "on average" well ahead of the boys on the road to reading. Of course all kids are different, but she suggested that girls accel at reading early and it may help them to have a better love of books instead of fighting the words to figure them out. Young children especially are very apt to find things that come easy to them because of attention spans not being very long. This is why some readers who are reluctant at first are able to catch up later when their attention span is longer.
Oh, to make things fair, she told me the boys "on average" are much better at math.
And to keep in line of not stirring up the boy/girl issue. I said "average" up there, I know not all kids fit into this. Just stating that I was told most of the time it is this way, and we ALL know how there are alot of different types of kids out there.
But the girls in my partner's class are equally likely to order the toys and kits instead of books. Actually, I think they have more books that appeal to boys who aren't big readers than girls--the "gross and weird" and "scary" books which boys love--the books aimed at girls in the catalog are more literary, books about horses and pioneers and so on. It's a generalization, but it's what I've noticed.
Most of the parents of these children don't speak English, have low literacy, and/or are uninvolved, so the kids choose by themselves, and my partner has chosen not to limit them to books; it would be a battle every month.
As for branded books, I do not mind them much. Clifford books are great for kids and seeing that it is also on TV can really "boost" a struggling reader or some kids that are not so fond of reading. Of course some of them are mindless drivel, but at least they are reading. (Sponge Bob joke books seem mindless, but they get kids reading.)
The girl boy thing with math may be something that starts to show gaps later, I did not go into depth with her about this.
The fourth grade teacher (single male) never handed any out so I asked the other fourth grade teacher (female with children) to give my son some forms so we could order from her and this year the fifth grade teacher is a female with kids, although the third grade teacher had them as well and he is a male, but older with kids.
We used to get the free magazine for parents from Scholastic - Parent and Child, but that seemed to disappear, or now cost money?
I do like the articles they have on their website.
As far as the gender thing, we are not affected by it. My son is 5, soon to be 6 and LOVES his Scholastic order forms. We pour through them and pick out books together and he skips right over the toys they offer. We then take the form to Grandma, who teaches 2nd grade, and she pours over it and always buys books that she knows are good ones. He is so excited the day those books come in and just wants me to read them all to him in one sitting. I guess my love of reading, passed down from my parents, has been passed down to him. Its funny, his father HATES to read, doesn't see the point, and thankfully, my son is the opposite.
From my mom the teacher (for 30+years) she recommends ALWAYS buying the "special listed" book for less than $1.00. She says those are a steal! ;-)
Most of the "toys" are either educational (science, craft etc. ) or they come along with a book selection for an extra cost. Rarely are their just "toys" for them to purchase. I make these forms available to parents and I often only get a few that actually order. I try to suggest the 95 cent books to the children. Very often I purchase books for my own children or Christmas gifts for other children in my family so that I can get points for books for the classroom.
I am glad there is a company like Scholastic that is willing to help teachers and schools by offering incentives. At least twice a year I also get an invitation to their warehouse for a clearout sale. Which helps a lot when getting "quality books" for my classroom.
Danielle--It's clear that your students are lucky to have you as a teacher (12 years in the classroom here). I'm glad the program serves your needs so well. You deserve all the support they can get you.
Did they offer any mud kits? How about kits for making ice -- I hear that's a tricky one.
But this time my eyes popped out of my head and my husband thought I was having a stroke....IT WAS FULL OF NINTENDO AND PLAYSTATION GAMES!!!
I intentionally put this in the back of my mind and reading this article brought it back to the forefront. I will be writing to the school principal and requesting that no video game flyers be sent home again. What will they think of next?
They seize the ship, Amistad, and try to sail back to Africa, but the white devils had changed the stars around. They ended up captured and put on trial for murder as well as facing a claim for them as slaves; property of the slave trader.
A Former President of the US joins their defense team in arguing that they were kidnap victims who fought for their freedom.
So... imagine my surprise when a man a year older than me is sued by a woman ,also my age, who claims his blockbuster film was based on her story.
I suspect both read that same Scholastic book when they were in junior high.
The bane of aging, and still having your memory, is you discover how many charlatans are out there. And the youngsters haven't a clue
One of MY personal favorites (not the kids, sadly) is the all-history flyer... it has historical fiction, biographies, and other non-fiction related to history.