Overall, I find Scholastic Book Fairs to be a reliable choice for school fundraising, though you need realistic expectations about the time investment. The setup takes work, the volunteer coordination requires planning, and the merchandise-to-book ratio might frustrate some parents.
But the system works, the support is solid, and the name recognition brings families through the door.
If you need a fundraiser that doubles as a community event and you have the volunteer capacity to manage it, this program delivers consistent results.
What You Get with Scholastic Book Fairs
Scholastic provides the full package for running a book fair at your school or organization. They ship the books and merchandise directly to you, provide display materials, give you registers for checkout, and include promotional materials for marketing the event to families.
The company has been running these fairs for over 40 years, so they know what works. You get access to their planning guides, timeline checklists, and customer support throughout the process.
They also set up an online fair that runs alongside your in-person event, which extends your selling window.
The rewards system gives you options. You can take 50% of your sales back in Scholastic Dollars, which you spend in their catalog. Or you can take 25% in actual cash.
Both options work, but you need to decide what your school needs more: flexibility with cash or higher rewards that lock you into their product selection.
Learn more about hosting a Scholastic Book Fair →
How the Fair Actually Works
You apply to host a fair, and Scholastic assigns you a date. They ship everything to your location about a week before the event.
The boxes arrive with books organized by category and age group, display materials, pricing information, and checkout supplies.
Setup takes 2-4 days depending on your space and volunteer availability. You arrange books on tables or shelves, set up the registers, organize the checkout area, and prepare the promotional displays.
During the fair, you need volunteers to staff the registers, help students find books, keep displays organized, and manage money. Most fairs run for 3-5 days with shopping hours during lunch, after school, and evening family shopping events.
After the fair closes, you pack up unsold inventory, reconcile your sales, and send your financial reports to Scholastic. They process your rewards based on total sales.
The Volunteer Coordination Side
This Scholastic Book Fairs review needs to address the real volunteer burden. You need people for many shifts across several days.
Morning shifts, afternoon shifts, evening shifts.
Setup crew, breakdown crew, register operators, floor helpers.
Here’s what the volunteer work looks like:
Setup takes 6-10 volunteers for 2-4 hours each, depending on your inventory size. Daily shifts during the fair need 2-4 people per shift, with more during peak times like after school.
Breakdown needs 4-6 people for 2-3 hours.
Financial reconciliation needs 1-2 detail-oriented people for 4-6 hours.
Scholastic provides three registers as standard, which helps when you have lines of excited kids waiting to check out. The eWallet system let’s parents load money onto student accounts ahead of time, so kids can shop independently without carrying cash.
This speeds up checkout and reduces the “Mom, can I have money?” negotiations during the fair.
The displays need constant attention. Kids pull books out, look at them, and put them back in random spots. Volunteers spend significant time re-shelving and organizing throughout each day.
Get started with your Scholastic Book Fair application →
What Actually Shows Up: Books and Merchandise
The inventory includes popular book series that kids recognize and want. Dog Man, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Wings of Fire, Babysitters Club, graphic novels, picture books for younger grades, and middle-grade fiction.
But you also get toys, erasers, pencils, bookmarks, stuffed animals, and various trinkets. Some coordinators appreciate these items because they give kids at lower price points something to buy.
Other coordinators find the merchandise detracts from the focus on reading.
The book selection emphasizes popular franchises. If your students already own these series, the fair becomes less about discovery. Scholastic has faced ongoing criticism for limited diversity in their fair selections, though they have expanded their offerings of diverse authors and characters in recent years.
You can ask specific titles or themes when you order, but you work within their available inventory. You cannot hand-pick every single book like you could if you were ordering directly from a broader vendor.
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Rewards Options | 50% in Scholastic Dollars OR 25% in cash |
| Setup Time | 2-4 days with 6-10 volunteers |
| Typical Fair Duration | 3-5 days of shopping |
| Registers Provided | 3 standard registers included |
| Online Fair Component | Yes, runs concurrent with in-person event |
| Payment Options | Cash, check, credit/debit, eWallet |
| Volunteer Hours Needed | 30-50 total volunteer hours for typical fair |
| Support Provided | Planning guides, promotional materials, customer service |
The Community Engagement Factor
A Scholastic Book Fairs review needs to thank that these events create buzz in your school community. Parents remember book fairs from their own childhood.
Kids get excited about picking out their own books.
Teachers use the fair as a field trip destination during the school day.
The fair gives families a reason to come to school in the evening, browse together, and join in a shared experience. You can add activities like author visits, reading challenges, or costume contests to increase engagement.
This community-building aspect has value beyond the dollars raised. The fair reminds families that your school prioritizes literacy. It creates positive associations with reading.
It gives kids ownership over their book choices instead of just receiving assigned reading.
Some organizations find this intangible benefit worth the volunteer investment even if the direct fundraising returns seem modest.
The Financial Reality
Your sales volume depends heavily on your community size and household income levels. A school with 500 students in a middle-income area might generate $2,000-$4,000 in sales.
Taking the 25% cash option means you raise $500-$1,000.
Taking the 50% Scholastic Dollars option gives you $1,000-$2,000 to spend in their catalog.
Schools in higher-income areas see significantly higher sales. Schools in lower-income communities see lower sales, which means the same volunteer effort produces different results depending on your location.
You cannot make specific earnings projections because too many variables affect your results: community size, income levels, time of year, competing events, weather, marketing effectiveness, and parent participation rates.
The rewards structure stays consistent. How much you actually raise varies widely.
Explore Scholastic Book Fair options for your school →
Logistics That Make or Break the Experience
The shipping arrives on schedule in my experience and from reports I have reviewed. Scholastic has the supply chain figured out after decades of running these events. But you need adequate storage space for all those boxes before setup, and you need a location with enough square footage for displays and shopping traffic.
The registers work smoothly with many payment types. The eWallet system reduces cash handling, which parents appreciate for safety and convenience. The online fair component extends your reach to families who cannot attend in person.
The reconciliation process requires attention to detail. You need to account for every book sold, match payments to purchases, and send accurate reports.
Scholastic provides instructions and support, but this step takes focused time from reliable volunteers.
When This Program Makes Sense
You want a turnkey solution with established systems. You have volunteer capacity to handle setup, daily operations, and breakdown.
Your community responds to familiar brands and nostalgic experiences.
You need fundraising that doubles as a community event as opposed to just a revenue generator.
You can absorb popular franchise titles in your library or classroom collections. You want many checkout registers and established payment processing.
You value the literacy promotion aspect alongside the fundraising.
When You Might Consider Alternatives
Your volunteer pool is limited and you need simpler logistics. Your community prioritizes diverse, carefully curated book selections over popular franchises.
Your library already has strong inventory and you need more selection flexibility with your rewards.
You want higher percentages of books versus merchandise in your inventory mix. You need fundraising that generates higher returns per volunteer hour invested. Your organization focuses primarily on revenue as opposed to community engagement.
Several competitors offer book fairs with different inventory approaches, reward structures, and logistics requirements. Researching many options helps you find the best fit for your specific situation.
Compare book fair options and sign up for Scholastic →
What Coordinators Should Know
This Scholastic Book Fairs review comes from analyzing coordinator experiences, program details, and practical implementation. The program works best when you approach it as a community literacy event that generates supplemental funding, as opposed to as a primary fundraiser expected to solve budget problems.
Set realistic expectations with your volunteers and administration. The fair takes work. The returns depend on your community.
The experience creates value beyond just the money.
Plan your volunteer recruitment early. Create detailed shift schedules.
Over-recruit because people will cancel.
Assign specific roles so everyone knows their responsibilities.
Market the fair heavily to families. Send many reminders through email, flyers, social media, and school announcements.
Create excitement with countdown activities and reading challenges.
Train your volunteers on the registers, the eWallet system, and customer service basics. Kids get overwhelmed with choices and need gentle guidance.
Parents have questions about pricing and payment options.
The Book Quality Question
Scholastic books are legitimate, properly published titles from recognized publishers. You get real books, not cheap knockoffs or remaindered inventory.
The popular series sell well because kids genuinely want them.
The issue some coordinators raise involves selection as opposed to quality. The inventory emphasizes bestsellers and franchises. You see less emphasis on literary fiction, diverse voices, debut authors, or hidden gems that might expand your students’ reading horizons.
This trade-off makes business sense for Scholastic. Popular books sell better, which means higher fair revenues and higher rewards for schools.
But it also means your fair might feel repetitive if you host many events per year or if students already own these series.
You can supplement the Scholastic inventory by purchasing extra diverse titles with your rewards, though that requires extra effort and planning.
Final Assessment
Scholastic Book Fairs deliver what they promise: an established system for running a book fair at your school with decent rewards and solid support. The program works for organizations that have volunteer capacity, realistic fundraising expectations, and communities that respond to familiar brands and popular book series.
The name recognition helps. Parents know Scholastic. Teachers grew up with these fairs.
Kids get excited about the event.
That built-in awareness reduces your marketing burden and increases participation.
The volunteer coordination requires real work, though. You need people willing to commit time for setup, daily operations, and breakdown.
You need detail-oriented volunteers for financial reconciliation.
You need patient people to help excited kids make choices and manage checkout lines.
The rewards structure gives you options between higher store credit percentages or lower cash percentages. Both approaches work depending on your needs. The Scholastic Dollars limit you to their catalog, which has less selection than broader book vendors, but the 50% rate doubles what you receive compared to the cash option.
I recommend this program for schools and organizations that value community engagement alongside fundraising, have adequate volunteer capacity, and want an established system with proven logistics. The program delivers consistent, modest results that work well as supplemental funding as opposed to primary revenue.
Sign up to host your Scholastic Book Fair today →
This Scholastic Book Fairs review aims to give you realistic expectations about the program. The fair creates positive literacy experiences in your community while generating funds for your organization.
The work investment is real, the rewards are modest, and the overall experience tends to satisfy schools that approach it with suitable expectations.
You get a reliable program from a company that understands school fundraising logistics, and that reliability has value when you are already managing many responsibilities with limited time and volunteer resources.