I love to see the kids excitement when they see the carts in the hallways and their "oohs" and "aaahs" as we are unpacking the fair. I hate unpacking the fair,
I love that the students want to buy a lot of books. I hate when they come to the counter with 6 hardback books and $2.
I love seeing families come to the book fair together to buy books. I hate the looks on the parent's faces when the children say, "can I get the hand pointer?"
I love that the book fair is a way for me to raise money to bring authors to my school. I hate that a good chunk of the money is made off the "junk" instead of the books.
I love seeing students that know how to count and handle their money. I hate seeing baggies full of change and wadded up bills.
I love that students I don't think will bring money to buy books, do. I hate that not every child can buy a book and some feel they have to steal to get one.
I hate when book fair is over. I love when book fair is over and the kids are already asking when the next one is.
this post perfectly expresses my thoughts throughout the last week as we have had our spring book fair... not looking forward to going in to school tomorrow to pack it all up! but am ready to get back to library mode! :)
ReplyDeleteEight years ago I made a switch in book fair companies, and that made a huge difference in how I felt about the book fair. The new company carried the same titles at the same prices, provided me with 3-4 boxes of discounted books for my underprivileged students ($1-3) whereas the original saved those for a big warehouse sale, and most importantly NO JUNK! (A few science kits, bookmarks, and pencils came, but the rest of the merchandise was books!) I only had complaints from students that first year when there were no posters and 3-foot long pencils and other stuff. After that, all the students came in excited to get books!
ReplyDeleteSummer - we started closing the fair on Friday at noon so we could pack up in the afternoon. I hated coming back to school Monday and having to do it.
ReplyDeleteStephanie - I have thought about changing companies but worry that I wouldn't make the same amount of profit. Did you notice a difference?
I made the same basic profit (just over $13,000 in sales, 25% of that + $400 in free books) every year except the one year when the economy in our area had tanked pretty badly. By the next year, profits were back to normal.
ReplyDelete