Kudos to Scholastic, Inc.

My church’s school had a Scholastic Book Fair this week, and I didn’t participate. Since it coincided with the science fair, they stuck the book fair in a room I had no reason to walk by. Without a reminder, I simply forgot. And that’s too bad.

I’m a big fan of Scholastic, Inc. Over its long life, it was inevitable that it would make a few decisions I don’t agree with (see my January 25, 2016 blog post), but it’s impossible to overemphasize all the good Scholastic has done to promote literacy among children and encourage a lifelong love of reading.

When I was a child, I couldn’t get enough to read. Yes, DeTour Village had a school library, but the selection was very limited. The closest public library was sixty miles away at Sault St. Marie (Michigan), and we made the trip every two weeks. The Soo library allowed patrons to check out only six books at a time, and I had them read within the first three days. The bigger problem, however, was that the Soo wasn’t very large, and neither was its library. So it wasn’t long before I had to check out books that I had already read several times.

Daddy was a small-town minister and Mama was a small-town teacher, so their salaries were also small. Since they saved Mama’s earnings for travel and our college education, there wasn’t much left for reading material. But they did encourage us to purchase books through the monthly Scholastic Book Club flyers at school. We could only buy one book at a time, and I don’t remember if we were allowed to purchase every month or were limited to several times a year. In either event, those books were my most precious possessions.

I still remember three of them: On Your Toes, Suzie by Lee Wyndham, Sensible Kate by Doris Gates, and Ellen Tebbits by Beverly Cleary. Unfortunately, Ellen Tebbits is the only one of the three that is still in print.

My support for Scholastic didn’t stop when I grew up. When I had children, I bought Scholastic books for them. And I continue to patronize school book fairs.

The photo shows some of the many Scholastic books I’ve purchased in recent years. I don’t know the breakdown between books that came from Amazon or brick and mortar bookstores and those I purchased at Scholastic book fairs, but many fit within the latter category.

I have always appreciated Scholastic’s efforts to support schools and encourage reading.

So kudos to Scholastic.