Michelle Cyca has written a sad piece for The Walrus about the death of the Scholastic Book Fair, and it is so obviously a love letter to everything she is complaining about that it reads like a joke aimed at the reader. Her argument is that the fair used to sell books — actual books, with stories — but now it sells Pokémon guides and Paw Patrol novels, and that shift marks a fall from grace. She is right, in a way, but she is also deeply wrong about why it matters.
Pocket Books and Clifford
Scholastic launched its first teen book clubs in 1948, selling Pocket Books through magazines placed in classrooms. The book fairs themselves started in 1982, and early catalogs featured Scholastic titles like the Clifford series. Later, the fair became a key driver for YA properties like The Hunger Games and Goosebumps. Spin-off books and merch are not new to the fair, either — franchise offerings date back to at least 2002.
The fair has always had a fiscal purpose too. In North America, it offers a supplemental funding pipeline for under-resourced schools. A Scholastic rep told Fox 13 that book fairs have raised more than $2 billion for American schools in the last decade alone.
Cyca’s Order Form Memory
Cyca remembers the fair fondly. She writes about the order form, the pencils, the deliberation over Animorphs, Scott O’Dell novels, and R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series. She loved the freedom of choosing, and she loved the proximity to more stimulating entertainments. The problem is that she wants to have it both ways. She wants the fair to be a wholesome, pure celebration of reading, but she also wants it to include Animorphs and Pokémon guides.
She notes that the program has always escalated “micro and macro inequalities.” She agrees the fair has always been imperfect as an educational tool. But her nostalgia is purely aesthetic. She misses the analog library aesthetic, and she admits that the fair was never about finding the “best” books. The un-classy offerings, marketed on their proximity to more stimulating entertainments, were just as important as Bud, Not Buddy.
Danika Ellis On The Fair
Danika Ellis, a Book Riot editor and former bookseller, told CBC that she has long been skeptical of the fair for exactly this reason. “We have kids who are walking away with huge stacks of books and posters and toys, and then kids who can’t have anything or have a lot less,” she said. “If the goal is to celebrate books and reading and get kids excited… is a for-profit book fair the best way to do that?”
This is the fair’s original sin, and it is a standing paradox. Buying books has never been the same as reading them. The fair has always been unequal, and it has always sold things that are not books at all.
Cory Doctorow’s Term
Cyca’s critique is less about the fair’s modern offerings than its vibe. She describes it as embroiled in a larger sense of cultural degradation. Cory Doctorow has a term for this: “enshittification.” Referring to the process by which a user experience degrades sharply as value is extracted from said user, enshittification is a symptom of late-stage capitalism.
But the real enshittification here is not the fair itself. It is the nostalgia. Cyca is nostalgic for a fair that never existed. The fair of her childhood sold Pokémon guides and Animorphs. The difference is that those were books, even if they were tie-ins. Now they are just toys.
The Fair’s Long History Of Franchise Offers
Cyca’s complaint is that the fair has lost its purity. The books are extensions of toy and TV franchises, and they market themselves on proximity to more stimulating entertainments. But the fair has always sold toys and posters. The Clifford series was a franchise offering. The Hunger Games was a franchise offering. Goosebumps was a franchise offering.
The difference is that those were books. The Pokémon guide was a book. The Paw Patrol novel is a toy. The distinction is not between books and toys. It is between books that look like books and books that look like toys.
Coveting Was The Real Education
Cyca misses the point. The fair was never about refining literary taste or honing a pure love of reading. It was about coveting. The thrill was buying something your parents would never buy you. You circled Garfield and The Babysitter’s Club and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles books in your catalog. You bought them because they were shiny and exciting.
The high of coveting a Star Wars spin-off or a New Kids on the Block poster book was not purer than the high of coveting whatever a squishmallow is. Assuming some kid somewhere does.
The Numbers Behind The Fair
| Program | Year Launched | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Pocket Book clubs | 1948 | Affordable books via classroom magazines |
| Book fairs | 1982 | School fundraising and book sales |
| First franchise offerings | 2002+ | Tie-in products like Pokémon guides |
| School funding pipeline | Ongoing | Supplemental support for under-resourced schools |
The fair has always been a funding pipeline, and it has always been a place to sell things. The difference is that now the toys seem more prominent.
The Final Word
Cyca’s piece is a complaint about a book fair full of licensed tie-in products, delivered entirely through nostalgia for the very same tie-in products the writer is ostensibly condemning. It is a funny piece, but it is also a sad one. The fair is not dead. It is just different. And the difference is not new. It is just more prominent.
The fair was never ever fair. It is still not. But it is still a place where kids can find something they want, even if it is not a book.
The fair has always been about coveting, and that is the real education. The books are still there, but they are buried under posters and plushies. The nostalgia is real, but it is misplaced. The fair of the past was not a utopia. It was a place where some kids had wads to throw around on Snoopy backpacks, and others had lunch money that could really only translate to a sticker sheet or two.
The difference is that now the toys seem more prominent. The fair has always been unfair. It has always sold things that are not books. The change is not new. It is just more prominent.
Source material: “Have They Ruined Our Beloved Scholastic Book Fair?,” Literary Hub.
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