There is now enacted or pending legislation in more than 30 U.S. states prohibiting certain kinds of books from being in schools – mostly LGBTQIA+ titles and books that engage with the presence of racism in our country. Because Scholastic Book Fairs are invited into schools, where books can be purchased by kids on their own, these laws create an almost impossible dilemma: back away from these titles or risk making teachers, librarians, and volunteers vulnerable to being fired, sued, or prosecuted.
To continue offering these books, as well as even more high interest titles, we created an additional collection called Share Every Story, Celebrate Every Voice for our U.S. elementary school fairs. We cannot make a decision for our school partners around what risks they are willing to take, based on the state and local laws that apply to their district, so these topics and this collection have been part of many planning calls that happen in advance of shipping a fair.
Have you been to a elementary school or even middle school book fair in recent history? The offerings are curated garbage of minimal literary value with product tie-ins to popular IP. Or that “wimpy kid” style of throwaway graphic novel that barely qualifies as reading.
If you want your kids to engage with any content of merit (whatever that looks like to you) you’re going to need to take matters into your own hands and checkout local library books or buy your own books. That’s just reality in 2023.
Unfortunately accurate. It was already pretty tamed around a decade ago before I was a parent.
Today, I’m walking through rows of the most shallowest picture books for 1-2nd graders, and like anime art books and “fortnite/Minecraft/youtuber influencer” books for older kids.