Dear Scholastic Books
A letter from Mrs. Neery’s 4th Grade Class about the commercialization of Scholastic Book Fairs. A film by MemeFILMS (www.memefilms.org Tired of all the junk at book fairs – learn how to hold a commercial-free book fair at www.commercialfreechildhood.org
Comments (25)
@jortzambault
All I can say is good on you all. Keep up that kind of attitude. You can make a difference!
I like the song.
there trying to get some damnn money idiots
I would like to say to some of the people that were very rude with their comments earlier that i was a student that was in this class 4 years ago. I am now graduating with high honors. At the end of that 4th grade year our teacher took us to the book fair, but all we saw was a bunch of junk toys. We then decided to write letters to Scholastic hoping that they would send educational books for our school to read. The next year Scholastic had read our letters and sent our school educational books:)
To all those people who posted rude comments: These kids will go more places and succeed better in their life because they are concerned about their education. They don’t want to settle for mediocre — GOOD FOR THEM! They want to strive for the best and because of that, they will do well.
sucky vid
Trust me when I say that these kids are mostly hopeless.
Haha thoose r all 8 th graders now And they all still look the same and tht is bout queer shit I go 2 tht skwl and we havmlike no books at r book fair it’s just like 2 year old pussy stuff
i am one of the kids in this video and mostly all of the comments are rude we did this video on things that we thought about scolastic and how much of a rip of they can be you dont sell games and posters at a “Book Fair ” i mean look at the title book fair its not a toy fair or a poster fair if it was thats what it would be called we were just trying to get a point across so we dont need the negitivity !
all this video showed was kids complaining about the books they have in their book fair at least be grateful for what you have cuz their are a lot of kids out there that don’t get to have one book and the money goes to your school also their at a young age let them have fun so just shut up and stop bitching!!
Wth? Why are these crazy children saying Schoolastic is bad for it? I BET THAT BOY BOUGHT THAT BRATZ BOOK! So you children need to SHUT UP!
lol my school book fair was awesome ends tomorrow D: AND I BOUGHT ALOT i bought diary wimpykid rodrick rules CPpenguin Comics volume 1 Suit life zack and cody side by side and amelia rules I guess ill let my sis read that but the comics are so funny lol and im 9 years old this is really my uncles youtube account Ok bYe
By the way, my comment was a response to F16462 not to this video.
What do taxes going to education have to do with Scholastic corrupting the notion of reading? In fact, if more of our taxes went to the schools they wouldnt be so dependent on fundraisers such as this. Instead of bitching about funding our schools why don’t you bitch about corporate welfare and the over-inflated military budget?
BACKGROUND:
I made the video Dear Scholastic Books as part of a Media Literacy, artist-in-residence. We filmed over ten videos that week on tobacco, alcohol, product placement, advertising etc.
This teacher had just completed the project.
I decided to simply use all of the students language verbatim from their letters. The filming took 45 min. At the Scholastic Book Sale I filmed all the bubble gum, tie-ins to films and TV shows, whoopee cushions, Bratz dolls etc.
JV
I have an idea, orbbafsinned. Let’s exercise our 1st amendment rights and complain about whatever we’d like to. Got something against freedom?
Here’s a thought: How about instead of fundraising you begin selling ad spots on your classroom walls to corporations. That would help bring in more money to your school. In fact, if teachers became sponsored by corporations, then the school would not have to pay them as much. Teachers could just encourage products on students. I give respects to Mrs. Neery’s class. I would hate that as a kid.
To be fair, these things are used as fund raisers, not a place to stock your library. We participate every year because it’s a way for the school to raise money as well as a chance for my kids to buy some stuff they normally wouldn’t be able to. Here’s a thought: If you don’t like it, don’t participate. Instead, go to a book store and buy books for your kids. Instead of bitching about Scholastic, why aren’t you bitching about the waste of federal money in education? All these taxes…
I have an idea. Let’s just burn everything that you don’t agree with.
This video, if these kids actually feel this way, gives me hope for humanity.
Scholastic has lost their ways…. this is very sad. One of the thousand reasons our daughter won’t be at a public school.
I Both agree and disagree. Most of the kids sound like they WERE fed their opinions, but I don’t think that because of their vocabulary. I had a great word library myself. Most of the kids love the toys, I know I did, HOWEVER, aside from toys, I wanted to get into a book–and sadly scholastic lately has been force feeding kids Miley Cyrus and the like. I wanted to read an actual book…And if my book fairs were like theirs is now, I would be bored and would have hated the things. That’s just sad
They do have a choice, but it’s very limited. The Scholastic book fair works as an order program with the catalogs received prior to the fair acting as a showcase of goods that will be included. While the schools have some decision over what goes into the book fair, most of the products ‘geared towards kids’ include a *learning tool* that is made to get them excited about reading. Unfortunately, these are toys, and the catalog is FULL of them. Not much choice exists…
I loved these Fairs as a kid, but it was the erasers and posters that I was excited about.
I was reading at a 5th grade level in the 1st grade, so I was a reader.
Here I am at age 31 jonesing for fuzzy headed pencils and kitten posters.
Heaven help me!
While this is probably fake, you would be surprised what 4th graders can do. =)