Scholastic provides diverse titles to every Book Fair.  

There have been a number of misconceptions that we want to clarify about how we have created a path to host Scholastic Book Fairs, even as schools and educators in the U.S. navigate restrictions imposed on them by state legislation and local policy. The biggest misconception is that Scholastic Book Fairs is putting all diverse titles into one optional case. This is not true, in any school, in any location we serve.

There is now enacted or pending legislation in more than 30 U.S. states prohibiting certain kinds of books from being in schools – mostly LGBTQIA+ titles and books that engage with the presence of racism in our country. Because Scholastic Book Fairs are invited into schools, where books can be purchased by kids on their own, these laws create an almost impossible dilemma: back away from these titles or risk making teachers, librarians, and volunteers vulnerable to being fired, sued, or prosecuted. 

To continue offering these books, as well as even more high interest titles, we created an additional collection called Share Every Story, Celebrate Every Voice for our U.S. elementary school fairs. We cannot make a decision for our school partners around what risks they are willing to take, based on the state and local laws that apply to their district, so these topics and this collection have been part of many planning calls that happen in advance of shipping a fair.

We don’t pretend this solution is perfect – but the other option would be to not offer these books at all – which is not something we’d consider. There is a wide range of diverse titles throughout every book fair, for every age level. And, we continue to offer diverse books throughout our middle school fairs, which remain unchanged. 

All children need to see themselves in stories and it is extremely unsettling to consider a world in which they don’t. Scholastic’s commitment remains unshakeable to publish and distribute stories representative of ALL voices.