Wednesday, October 18, 2017

The Scholastic Book Fair





I got the "opportunity" today to go help my kindergartner's class pick out their top eight books from the scholastic book fair for their wish list. This book fair was my JAM when I was a kid. I mean, out of my top 10 memories as a kid, Book Fair is on the list at least 3 separate times.

Supermarket Sweep
Can someone PLEASE explain to me why we were given exactly twelve minutes to get our brains around ten-thousand book options?? This was not easy for a 7 year old. We had $14 in random bills and loose change, and we had to keep a running tally of our planned purchases in our head like a bookie at the tracks on race day... it was unnecessary chaos. But honestly something about that experience being almost exactly like the game show Supermarket Sweep, where middle-aged woman skidded through the grocery store throwing frozen 20-pound turkeys in their buggy, made the experience of book shopping on the fly all the sweeter. They could have given us more time. But then, perhaps, the magic would die off.
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Extortion
News Flash - the Scholastic Book Fair has not remained immune to inflation, and the prices are still at "Price Level-Extortion". I pointed to one of the few books for my 5 year old that wasn't Barbie or Shopkins themed as a suggestion. "Hey look at this book! This is about a girl SCIENTIST!!!". My forced enthusiasm was matched, and my child willingly handed me her list to fill in the details. The details for the EIGHTEEN DOLLAR BOOK. In no way. I'm a scientist. Just talk to me about that stuff for free. #budget

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I remember being so ready to turn into a bookworm every book fair. I made promises to myself that I would read my face off, and all the purchases I was definitely making were just investments in my new-found personality. It was like a New Years Resolution for a 2nd grader. Naturally I, along with all of the rest of my classmates, waltzed up to the check out hoping for some type of math-miracle. Maybe there's a book coupon I didn't know about. Maybe that JFK 50 cent coin my dad gave me out of his weird coin bucket he keeps on his desk is worth it's weight in gold.

My mother was OF COURSE working the PTA check out line and was not interested in my attempt at acquiring $150 of Goosebumps. The slow walk to put away all but 3 books was the worst. Just thinking about other kids getting to enjoy the book you tried to read. I hope you loved that Animorphs where the girl turned into the wolf. Because I can't read those, they are "evil" and also $12 in 1996.


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Pitch Meeting

Turns out the Book Fair is also full of land mines. And by land mines I mean, random toys. My kid asked about the toys today and I told her they weren't for sale they were for decoration. The concept of the book fair is astonishing; before book fairs existed, what was that concept pitch meeting like??

Idea Guy: OK. We are going to sell books to kids.

Business man: Great, like door to door?

I: No no no. In their school library.

B: You mean... where they have thousands of free books already at their disposal?

I: Well, yea, but this will be different! This will be like a fair.

B: Sure, ok, we will make books fun! We will have rides and carnival prizes and books.

I: Wrong. We will have nothing that is even remotely like a fair. We will have books on shelves. But the books will be turned ninety degrees sideways so the kids can see the covers instead of the spines.

B: Hmmm. So no games at all. Just racks of books they can buy in a room already full to the brim with free racks of books.

I: Exactly.

B: ok. So how do we make money off this?

I: I'll tell you how. We hype this up like the 2nd coming. We set a time limit so kids have a false sense of urgency, that if they don't buy that Fancy Nancy book here fore 1.5x the price it is anywhere else, they will never see Fancy Nancy again.

B: OK. I can see how that will work on the kids. But won't the parents see right through that gimmick?

I: YOU SEE NOTHING. The parents are not allowed to come make the purchases. Only kids can buy books.

B: With what money exactly?

I: The money their parents give them, of course.

B: I'm not following. Parents are going to BLINDLY give their kids an indeterminate amount of money to go buy books unsupervised?

I:  No no no. Well. Actually yes. But the parents will think it is regulated?

B: Gotcha.... how will they think that?

I: The kids will bring home a decoy "wish list". It will have tons of great reading books they "want" to buy. The parents will have to give their children the money and trust that their 6 year old will be a good steward of the funds.

B: This is making sense now. So we will just let the parents order the books and the kids are the middle men.

I: You could not be more wrong. The list is a decoy. The kids can buy whatever they want and since we time limit the event, the teachers can't police all 20 kids at once.

B: So what will they buy?

I: Posters. Toys. Erasers. And 1 book.

B: I see this working once. Won't parents get wise after the first time.

I: They literally will do this every year for centuries to come and never catch on.

B: This is a gold mine.