My mom never let me buy books at this thing. She would make me write down the names of what I wanted then check them out at the library,

I loved this time, thought one time in 2nd grade I walked into the library and this volunteer mom stopped me at the door saying because I didn't have any money I couldn't come in and browse, broke my book loving heart

Oh man, we didn't have very much money growing up, but there were two books I really wanted to get. So my Dad scrounged up the $13 needed out of change tins, couch cushions, and penny jars just so I could get the 2 books I wanted. He's gone now and I miss him so much. And now I'm crying. Dammit, Scholastic ...

I hated the book fair and book orders, they reminded me that my family was poorer than everyone else's.

ah yes the library industrial complex

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Captain Underpants!!!!!!

Holy shit yes!!!!! Every year during the book fair was always the best, just waiting for your class's turn to go

I used to loveee the puppy/kitten posters they sold :")

Such an awesome memory. The book fairs every year and the magazines you ordered from monthly(?) definitely contributed to my love of reading. I hope schools are still doing this kind of stuff.

Got the bulk of my Calvin and Hobbes there.

YEs! Give me Goosebumps books, or ill sit in the corner and be upset! Plus, theres mom's puppy calendars she always made me buy

My 4 year old daughters school just had one of these and yes the books are still overpriced. Great feeling though in grade school to walk to the library and waste a hour looking at books instead of doing school work.

Pick up book. Drop book. Kick it so it will slide on the carpet underneath the shelf. Leave book fair and pick up book underneath shelf.

This is how I got my Far Side, Garfield, Fox Trot, Calvin and Hobbes, and Captain Underpants collection.

Ah the book fair... I remember always buying everything but books

Mothafuckin Animorphs.

Not when you're the poor kid in class. I was never able to get shit, but I still loved looking at all the books I'd never read.

My mom gave me a blank check once... I spent about $67. She never let me have a blank check again.

Must have ALL the puppy and kitty posters!!!!!

I am an elementary school librarian and I run two book fairs a year. Tons of work, but to see kids lined up to buy books and get excited about reading is priceless! Scholastic has been good about sending discounted books in the fairs so the kids with just a couple dollars can still buy a book. And I have been known to find some books "on sale" and use reward points for the little guys with a handful of coins. While fundraising is a big reason I run book fairs, seeing kids excited about reading is a bigger reason to run the fairs.

let's be honest. Was it the books or the fact that we all got to get out of class to look at roller coaster tycoon cd-roms?

They still have these in the UK. Twice a year on parents evening, my children's school has the scholastic book fairs. I still get excited looking for books with my children

Ohhhh this one got me right in the feels. I remember discovering some great book series at this place. This sanctum will always hold a special place in my heart

I completely forgot about these until last weekend I went to visit my GF's family and there was about 30 boxes that sais scholastic on the side and I instantly remembered the book fairs. Turns out she organizes them for their district or region or whatever they label their jurisdiction. Were going to go back up in may to take our little girl to one of the fairs and let her get a bunch of books!

Strange how you don't think about something for so long, then it gets brought up somewhere completely different that has no connection to the other source.

Scholastic book fair always lined up with parent teacher conferences, so sometimes it wasn't the best week D=

I LOVED THIS SO MUCH!

I always bought a lot of books! Also the puppy, kitty and teddy bear posters!! <3

I picked up my personal copy of the phantom tollbooth at a book fair. That was a good day.

This might be nostalgia to most of you but I guarantee to /r/daddit that this happens next week for us.

Truly was the greatest feeling getting to get out of class, knowing you had a shrink wrapped small stack of books waiting for you.

And before you pick them up you take as much time as you want to just browse and browse.

Which is just BARELY worth the torture of them going back to class and putting that shrink-wrapped stack of books into your desk and not being able to open them.

Holy shit man, these were amazing!

I always hated the wait for Book Orders to arrive.

Ours was a small town; no bookstores for 80 miles. So this was a big day for me. New books. New books everywhere.

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Ahh! I miss these. I assume schools still do these? They also used to sell those little fish (or bug?) eggs and little plastic tank, I always wanted that but it cost too much.

if and when i have a kid during book fair week i will tell them to write the name down and we will order them on amazon, i remember these things being extremely overpriced.

Stickers!

The joys of flipping through the flyers and picking out what you want, which was everything, and realizing that you either didn't have money for it, or could only pick out one thing

Being the son of the school librarian I could peruse this at my leisure whenever it came to our school, instead of the 20 minutes or so each class usually got. It was pretty boss.

Do kids kids still get to experience this? I hope so , when I was in elementary in the early 90s this was better than Carnivale day (eat maple syrup on ice and play games all day, it was a french immersion school in Alberta), you'd read these books over and over throughout the year until the next one came along.

I remember getting the Scholastic book magazine every month from school & my parents got a subscription to all the Arthur books plus Arthur toys.

I remember I begged my mom to buy me a National Geographic type book based on the fact it hat a Lion on it. She kept asking me if I would actually read it and not look at the pictures and stuff. I said yes lol.

She bought me the book, I looked at all the pictures and never read it. Now that I'm grown and frugal it makes me sick. Dammit younger me.

I always got to wear the Clifford the big red dog costume since I was the tallest kid in my class

I once took my lunch check which was around 50 dollars or so and re wrote the payee to the book fare and got a ton of books. Needless to say I had to return them.

As a resident of Dallas the only posters we got where the god damn cowboys. I sadly got a new Tony "homo" Romo poster every year.

Holy shit I just had a nostalgic wave hit me when I saw this. Collecting the pencil eraser toppers was the best part of school.

Ah the book fair - when you order a book in September, and you get it the final week of senior year.

The only book I remember getting at the book fair was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone when it had just come out. I was like "mooooommm i neeeeeedd thiiiss!!!"

Goodness how I loved how the scholastic bookfair SMELLED! The picture brought the scent back to my memory. :)

You just hit me in the remember.

Encyclopedia Brown to the rescue!

Dat smell

My mom was in charge of this, and I would go with her to help set up every time. Not only that, but I went to the preshows with her in fancy hotels, and got to buy bunches of books there. It was awesome

We weren't rich or poor growing up, but I remember loving these book fairs. My dad would rarely let me have money for toys, video games, etc...but if I wanted a book, he would get it for me, no questions asked. I feel like that had a really profound effect on me as a kid...hope to pay it forward one day.

Honestly I liked the little novelty writing utensils they sold more so than the books.

This reminds me that in like 4th grade, our teacher wanted us to buy the Lion, The Witch and The Warddrobe books because she didn't want to keep handing out the separate chapters printed out.

Not a lot of people had bought the book yet, but then the book fair rolled around. She told us all to buy it there but nobody did. When we got back to class after the book fair and noticed nobody bought it, and she fucking yelled at us. How all we did was buy stupid things (I remember her pointing out that some girl had bought a book that came with free false nails) and how nobody listened to her about buying the book.

How exciting, it's "rub the fact that GeebusNZ has no money and his parents won't buy 'unnecessary shit' in his face" day.

My dad used to work for a company based out of Bellevue Washington that would design educational toys for scholastic! I remember going to the book fair and seeing the things my dad had spent countless hours perfecting! Man it's been a long time since I've even thought about that...

Fuck yeah man. I would load up on Calvin and Hobbes and Goosebumps.

Best. Day. Ever.

They had some pretty neat books, I remember I got the spiderman novel based on the first movie.

Do they no longer do this?

They still do this at my kiddos school

I recall this in 4th or 5th grade they had a Poke'Mon handbook which was awesome, until I didn't have the money.

I'll never forget the awful "gifts" they sold at these.

I don't know if anyone else experienced this or if it was just something that my school did because we were in a particularly poor, rural area. But every year they would sell cheap little trinkets that kids were meant to give to their parents and siblings.

I think I remember this so well because my poor mom had to figure out what to do with the ceramic walrus (aka wordbank) statue that 9 year old me thought she would love.

And there were books, sure but I usually asked for money for books and bought my parents crappy gifts.

omg those posters

Bought Castles because I didn't have money for some other game. Boy I wasted money as a kid.

Best week of the year... if your family could afford to buy anything.

The make your own bouncy balls i bought there were the fuckin shit!

This is the NEW version.

Back in my day, we have a bus come with all the books on the walls inside. Now THAT is nostalgia.

These were fantastic. Magic Schoolbus or GTFO.

I only ever bought two books from these. One at my very first in 1st grade (I believe it was called "Why did the Banana Split?") and one at one of my last in 7th grade, called "Cryptid Hunters" (what a freaking awesome book).

Back in intermediate school, my mom was great friends with my school's librarian. After the book fairs, she would often let me have my pick of one of the leftover posters they would get. Nabbed myself a sick stealth bomber poster and a SpongeBob poster during those two years. Still got the stealth poster (which is now accompanied by a V-22 Osprey one).

My brother still has the car poster in the back middle...

I love/ed the car posters.

Buy all of the distracting unnecessary things! :D

I got a lot of Captain Underpants books from theses.

The only things I can remember getting are "A Stich in Time", "The Halloween Tree" and bunch of shitty joke books. Wasnt something similar called the Troll Book Club?

Oh yes. I think I'm more excited to go to these than my kid is. "How about this book? What about this one?" Got a Lego book with a special mini fig at the last one a few weeks ago.

I loved getting those little paper flyers a few weeks before they showed up and set up camp. However, one of my favorite parts was walking in and checking out all the sweet posters they had for sale. Memories.

Here is a word cloud of all of the comments in this thread: http://i.imgur.com/ex5zJgn.png

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Dave Mira Freestyle BMX

They still have these at my brother's elementary school.

Thank you so much!

Oh man the cheat code books. I would find cheats in games I had and wrote them down.

I would always ask for $40-50 worth of stuff but got about $20-something. Totally worth it!

Never had enough money for those racing games. . .BUT GOT ONE EVENTUALLY!

They got any Garfield? How about Scary Stories to Tell in the dark?

Is it just me or did it seem like each year the selection got less and less impressive? Like I'm pretty sure it was just me getting older or something but Scholastic c. 4th grade definitely seemed more kick ass than Scholastic c. 8th grade which definitely seemed more kick ass than Scholastic c. 12th grade.

only fun times at school. Instead of paying attention in class I would get absorbed in whatever books I was reading.

Best week ever.

The last time I went to one of these things as a kid, a classmate slipped a pencil or something into my backpack and then accused me of stealing. I was able to explain my way out of it.... They were pretty awesome otherwise.

I never had a book fair. I had those catalogs that would be clipped with the orders check marked and given to the teacher with a bank check. Then the books and stuff would be delivered to my class.

In school we loved this much but I don't know why. We were just bored. I went to the regular store all the time could have bought books there instead.

That smell tho! Man I loved those fairs.

I got myself the Official Runescape Handguide at one of these.

Man, those were huge for me too. In second grade, I was discouraged from roaming the vast selection, instead staying in the shallow end with other second graders. However, my third grade teacher realized that I was already into some grown-up sci-fi, and while free roaming the sale I discovered Steve Jackson's game books -- the kind where you need a pair of dice and play out combats like a crib notes version of D&D. This paved the way for an interest in full role-playing games by middle school, and all the gaming kept me reading voraciously as well. Perhaps all that paper and printing work is less efficient than data on devices, but I hope in some form young people are always encouraged to acquire a few good books of their own choosing.

Do they not do this anymore? :(

I worked in a Scholastic warehouse for a month. Not as fun.

Thanks to the Scholastic Book Fair, my love of Calvin and Hobbes began.

I would just buy posters.

This is where I got "Holes." The volunteer woman told me it was like Harry Potter. It wasn't, but it all worked out in the end.

Only bought the finger bicycles.

I remember buying a book of Garfield comics at one of the book fairs as a kid. I've been reading comics ever since :D

I remember in 2002 when the first Spider-Man film came out, I was in 1st grade. I saved up change just so I could get some kind of Spider-Man book when the book fair came. I bought a Spider-Man Handbook and read it over and over in class and used to get in trouble for drawing in class from what I saw in the book. Some little fuck stole it and I never got it back. I told the teacher and she told me to focus on my assignment. Teachers were so mean when you're little because you can't argue back. Well now I'm graduating and people actually buy my drawings I do of them.

This is where all my childhood posters came from. Lambos, Ferraris, Porsches oh my! ... and some books I guess.

As an adult (of course) I was a teacher of young children. We got an invitation to the Scholastic Warehouse Sale It was practically orgasmic. I had money from the school for my classroom and spent every cent of it. Plus we could buy things for ourselves at the same discount they gave for schools. My nieces and nephews were set.

Unless you were poor.

I was in an international school in some third world country. Scholastic Book Fair is when we find out who's the poor kids that got in the school through parent's career connections.

Unless you grew up poor.

An elementary schooler's wet dream.

This is where my elementary school self purchased everybody's Christmas gifts. Buying a copy of Animorphs for my grandpa never seemed strange as a kid.

The book fair comes to my university and I still go to it

I still come across CD-Rom games I bought from these every now and again. I've got Need for Speed II nearby and I definitely remember having Lemmings Paintball somewhere around here.

I always bought the toy books they were so much fun.

Stole a bionicle book in middle school and then paid them back because I just wanted it early.

Book orders and book fairs were the best thing about school. I always got so pumped with both of them, especially the book fair because there was always so much I wanted. In sixth grade I got to help set up one of them in the library because I was in an after-school video production club run by the librarian. That was seriously so much fun. I think I enjoyed that more than the actual shopping I did there.

The librarian let us take $6 worth of whatever we wanted to thank us for our help. I took an awesome missile-shaped pen and a Buffy the Vampire Slayer calendar.

It's so awesome that so many people have such fond memories of book fairs.

Scholastic book fairs are something the kids in my school still look forward to. It's great to see kids excited about books! As a bonus, Scholastic gives us bonus books based on sales to build our school library.

Unfortunately, these may not be around much longer because of an increase in theft. I work in a fairly poor neighborhood, so kids that really want a book and can't afford sometimes steal.

Looking for a way to help give all kids an opportunity to experience the joy of book fares, build your local school library, and get a tax deductible charitable contribution? Donate to your book fair.
At your local school just contact the front office or librarian. You can also specify what you would like the money to go towards (kids who can't afford books, books for a classroom, books connected to a topic of your choice, etc.)

You know they made those exciting just to fool us into thinking reading was cool. I always bought the toys and puzzles. I knew better hehe

Soooo fun. They still do those right?

There's only one things about this event that I hated. At my school, they made us buy at least one book before you could buy the pencils, erasers, bookmarks, etc. I don't remember about the posters. But everyone would always buy the small things. I bought books sometimes (if I saw something I wanted), but it just sucked that if I didn't find any books I wanted, then I couldn't buy a small eraser or pencil? Fuck you.

I was lucky enough to buy a eraser or bookmark

I swear I never ordered it but one day during book fair I got the wrong order. It was for a girl that wasn't there that day and I ended up keeping it. It was the first Animoprhs book. I saw it in the catalog but wasn't interested at the time. But I'm an avid reader so I read it anyway

That series was the greatest thing ever. I shouldn't have gotten rid of them :'(

I bought my first (and the first) Harry Potter book at the book fair. Harry Potter and The Sorcerers Stone, 1997. I still have it! First Edition with the stamp in front with my crooked ass handwriting. Ahh. Best time of my life.

i loved the book fair. i went every time. i still have some of the books i got from those days. i even got to work the registers once in the fifth grade. granted my mom also worked for scholastic book fairs for about 4 years and i got to go to the warehouse and pick out books during friends and family weekends. it was awesome.

several times i got to dress up as Clifford (the big red dog) and walk around and give hugs to little kids and take pictures with them. that was so much fun i remember.

once because of my moms connections i got a manuscript copy of Pendragon: The Never War before it came out. i was a huge fan of the series and felt so lucky to have the privilege.

I remember stealing a twenty out of my mom's purse to buy books with at the book fair when I was, like... six or seven I think :)

Ahh, the memories of berating your parents for weeks for this...

I can just smell the books posters and other items now... Just like if I was a kid again.

I used to love curious george as a youngster and I think this was where we got most of the books if it wasn't the library.

I'm on mobile so I can't get to the sidebar and see if this question is addressed there but is /r/nostlagia for things that aren't around anymore, things you miss from your childhood, or both? I'm always surprised when I see posts like this that reference things that still exist. I may have misunderstood the purpose of the sub.

I'm on mobile so I can't get to the sidebar and see if this question is addressed there but is /r/nostlagia for things that aren't around anymore, things you miss from your childhood, or both? I'm always surprised when I see posts like this that reference things that still exist. I may have misunderstood the purpose of the sub.

Golden retriever puppies have always been in style. They're just too cute.

I'll take the Guinness book, a few car and jet books, and a goosebumps please.

Something is not right here. I remember those shelves being at least 12 feet tall.

I got started on the Pendragon series from this those books were amazing

These are what started my love for reading. Purchased my first goosebumps ever through these. Also Wayside Stories and the scary Stories books. Children books back in the day were so bad ass!

snap

I work at a school and I was excited that we had the Book Fair this week! My co-workers asked why and I told them that is was the coolest time of the year in elementary school! I love to see the new books and the classics I had 30 some years ago! I like to walk around with my Amazon App and scan the books and see how much I can save by getting them online! Long live the Book Fair!

this was the worst day for the poor kids. i couldn't get anything.

It was always the most depressing week of the school year for me. These and field trips that cost money. I hated being poor.

I loved scholastic book fairs in my days, in canada and I guess I had an opposite perspective of the top comments. I could buy anything but I found that either the books weren't available or that the library has them and then if I did buy anything, it wasn't for me alone (it also couldn't be expensive). Even if little 10 year old me had $50, I was getting a fuzzy pencil and giving the change back to mom.

Scholastic really taught me to spend well, especially cause it was one of the first times alone with money around others who we're spending it.

I'll call your nostalgia and raise by the only book I can remember even buying at the book fair: (I still have it, too!)

http://skateandannoy.com/blog/2009/06/skateboard-action-from-steve-hawk/

Yesterday I bought my son the Minecraft guide at his book fair :) They didn't bring enough, so there was a sign-up sheet!

I didn't really buy books, I bought PC games there.

calvin and hobbes, every time.

My elementary school also had people that would come around Christmas time and sell cheap random things so that kids could buy surprise Christmas gifts for their parents. That was a lot of fun.

I went for the books, stayed for the Garfield.

I bought a Nose pencil sharpener in the 5th grade. First 5 minutes I got it, I tried to sharpen a pen and the ink exploded. Ruining it. I was not a smart kid.

Glad to see they still have the puppy posters

They also did subscriptions to gaming magazines in these, didn't they? Because I swear I remember getting a sub to PSM (Playstatioin Magazine)

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It's all about the one table full of unique pencil toppers, erasers, etc.

/r/hailcorporate