My Love-Hate Relationship with Book Fairs

We just finished up our fall book fair.  It was great.  Went off without a hitch.  

Can I be frank? 

I loathe school book fairs. 

No, that isn't entirely accurate. 

I really do love them.  

Setting it up is like Christmas morning. Opening each case to find the treasures inside. 

I love looking through the box of pens and erasers and junky stuff that kids love and parents roll their eyes at (me included). (Full disclosure: I once bought 15 of the invisible-ink-with-a-blacklight-to-send-secret-codes pens. Not as a child; I did this as an adult.)

I really love buying books at my children's book fairs.  I feel like there should be a secret handshake just for those who set up and run book fairs to keep ther libraries going. 

And there it is.  The loathing. 

I have a truly love-hate relationship with book fairs. 

I work in a district with a poverty level of over 50%.  My heart breaks for those kids who never get to buy anything. Or not the thing they want.  

I am thankful for the box of "vlue books" that are $2 or $3, but for some, that is still too much. 

And at the end of it all, when we cash out the fair, we get to choose 50% if we take stuff from the fair itself, 4o% if we take credit from the company, and 30% if we take cash. 

We always take credit (after getting all the books we can possibly use from the fair itself), because there is a huge difference between 30% and 40%, especially when that money is what will keep the library going, should grants fall through. 

And there it is, again.  

I am mad. Mad that the library is funded through the generosity of community members and the profits of sales from a book fair. I am mad that this is the system we have.  Books are important. Reading is important. Libraries are crucial.  Everyone agrees on this.  So let's fund the library? No? Oh, but hey! Book fair profits!

Our fair was very successful this year.  We sold over $3,000 worth of stuff. In the end, after taxes as all the rest, we got $150 in books from the fair and have a credit of $672. 

Library bound books (that will last and have guarantees) for the K-3 age group run around $20 each.  That means we can get about 33 books.   

That isn't a typo.  

33 books. 

So, yeah, I am mad.  And I am jealous. 

I am jealous that we don't bat an eye at new football uniforms and shell out tens of thousands of dollars for the new science curriculum. 

But we need a science curriculum!  Yes, yes we do.  Do you know what else we need?  A library. And books. 

Can I get Nike to sponsor the library? 

Can I sell advertising on the shelves to Coke? 

No, that's absurd.  As it should be.  

What else is absurd?  Expecting a library in a high-poverty district to fund itself solely on the profits of a book fair and the generosity of strangers.  

Reading to Children and Other Life Changing Exercises

I don't mean to brag, but, on a regular basis, I get to read to children. 

Recently I had a colleague minimize reading in classes. He dismissed it as an unimportant aspect of my day that could be summarized as "Ms. Crisp read to a class." 

Yes, I get to walk into a classroom where students cheer or wave or squeal.  Sometimes the hug me.  (This is not the reaction I get in the high school).  They run over to get a primo spot on the carpet and sit at my feet as I read to them.  

But it isn't just reading.  

Sometimes, we talk about the physical parts of the book.  In This Book Just Ate My Dog, any character who crosses the center of the book disappears, which gave us a hilarious chance to talk about how books are bound, what a gutter is, and why an author might use a double-page spread. 

Sometimes we talk about the way illustrators use images.  A few weeks ago, we read The Rabbit Listened and talked about what "disappointment" is, how we react to it, how an illustrator might show disappointment in a picture, and how those pictures can show what our internal struggles are.  The Rabbit Listened is beautiful and powerful.  More than once I choked back tears as I read it. It is the kind of book that you could give an adult.  And we talked about that, too.  How the ideas in a picture book apply to everyone. 

Often I have kids ask, "How can you read that without looking at the words?" and we talk about re-reading (since I read the same book to all classes K-5 in two buildings).  We talked about how re-reading can build fluency and how it also brings a unique perspective since you notice different things the 14th time through. 

When we read The Day You Begin, students talk about times they felt different or weird.  In one class a student--I swear I am not making this up--said, "This book could really help me because I feel like that all the time." 

In The Last Stop on Market Street, the main character volunteers in a soup kitchen, and, as we discussed what that is and why it was needed, a student, with absolute pride, was able to talk about the fact that she knew what that was. And also a food pantry!   Her lived experience, that could have been a source of shame, was, instead one of power and being able to inform others, who politely listened and nodded along. 

I say "we" read, because that is the case. I might be saying the words, but the students are reading the pictures and listening to the words (older students are often also reading with their eyes). They are interpreting, understanding, thinking. They are developing their listening comprehension skills at the same time that they are making text-to-self connections and often text-to-text connections when there is some other book that relates. So, in the deepest sense, I am deliberate when I say "we read".   

When a scheduling conflict comes up and I am not able to read in classes, kids are genuinely sad.  Some even walk up and sneakily suggest I could just slip into their room and read.   

So, yes, at times a description of my day is that I "read to a class". 

But I also taught. 
I used words that might have been new or used in a new way. 
I listened and responded.  
I valued the stories of the writers and the stories of the students. 

I taught. 

I modeled. 

I explained. 

I facilitated.

I analyzed. 
I shared.

Then

I helped kids analyze. 

I helped kids explain.  

I helped kids interpret.

And suggest,

And contrast. 

And relate.

And categorize. 

And validate. 

And express.

And consider.   

I get to go into classrooms and model the behavior of being an adult who loves, values, and shares the experience of reading. 

On a fairly regular basis, I have kids see me in Wal-Mart and in a not-so-hushed whisper exclaim, "That's the lady who reads to us!"

OK, I guess I do mean to brag.