Suzie Anderson poses with the blank shield students are soon to decorate with their design as incorporated into the excitement of reading.

Celebrating reading through a bit of royalty

by Doug Sands

The love of reading is taking on new meaning at the Eleva Intermediate and Strum Primary schools as the Scholastic Book Fair makes its way once again to the library doors. The 2014 book fair will be coming to the schools on December 3rd, giving students an opportunity to discover new places that books can take them.

Suzie Anderson, a well-known and well-liked librarian at the Primary school, has helped organize the book fairs throughout her seven years as a librarian there. “I absolutely love reading books to the students,” she said. Anderson explained that favorite part of being a librarian is, “showing the excitement and sharing the love of reading.”

Anderson and others at the school have been busy organizing different events for the book fair this year. They have been decorating, organizing, planning, and building around the central theme of the fair.

Each year, the book fair has a theme set by Scholastic as a publisher. Last year’s theme was Reading Oasis: A cool place to discover hot books. Special activities that coincided with the theme included guessing how many pages were in a mummified book, making a toothpick-and-marshmallow pyramid, creating a mummy mask, and drawing prizes out of a pyramid.

This year’s theme takes a much different route. “It’s royalty this year,” Anderson said excitedly. “Sir Readalot’s Castle: Enter the kingdom of books. We’re getting excited with castles and knights. It’s kind of cool, and it’s fun.”

The bulletin board outside the library has already been done up in medieval style, marking the first of the decorations. Anderson described how the students themselves would be getting in on the decorating this year: “Each classroom is going to decorate a coat of arms,” she explained. Fifteen different classrooms will be creating fifteen different shields to put on display at the event. “I work with artistic people; I’m not one of them,” Anderson said jokingly. “But they enjoy it.”

Anderson explained that the kids get very into the theme each year. “The thing they like the most is our family event,” said Anderson. “Wednesday night will be our family night from four till seven.”

The book fair’s Family Night is always a highlight for engaged young readers. Beginning shortly after school, the night holds plenty of absorbing activities for young minds. “Clifford the Dog will be there,” Anderson said. “We have treats and fun activities.” Throughout the night, there are usually around 200 people that attend to participate in activities and purchase books. “Kids love it.”

The book fair’s prices are great as well. “The highest paperback is five dollars,” explained Anderson. “It offers [parents] a good chance to get good books at good prices. It’s a nice chance for them to get books in their children’s hands.” The books at the fair come at a great price through Scholastic’s dedication to getting books into children’s hands at an early age. “With ten dollars, a child could leave here with three to four books, depending on selection,” Anderson said. “It’s not too bad.”

Another great thing about the book fair is that Scholastic- as a publisher for children’s literature- has an acute idea of what these students enjoy reading. “It’s a very good thing to purchase books here; the variety is great,” stated Anderson. “The kids know the characters. There are Clifford books, Pete the Cat books and multiple other characters that the kids know.” 

Though the fair is for the most part focused on pre-K through third grade readers, there are also chapter books for older siblings, as well as craft and recipe books for browsing mothers. “There’s a good variety,” Anderson admitted.

The book fair really is designed to be kid-friendly. Everything about the fair, from the exciting theme and setup to the kid-friendly eye-level displays of books, is set up for the kids’ favor. Running the fair itself is no different. On Tuesday, each class is allowed to spend half an hour browsing through the displays to make their own personal wish list. They write down five books that really catch their eye. That night, they bring the list to their parents, and on Wednesday the kids come back to purchase the books their parents have approved. 

On Wednesday night, the entire book fair opens up to the community. Following the events of that night, Thursday is the final call for books. Those who maybe forgot money on Wednesday or wanted more books than they could pay for at the time can pick up final selections before it’s all packed away.

The Wednesday night family event is definitely a crowd-pleaser for the younger generations. The activities this year- all of them based upon the medieval royalty theme- will give students plenty to engage in with their parents and families.

Anderson explained what the night would offer for these young minds. “We will have a drawing for when they come in, right off the bat,” Anderson said. “They’re going to estimate how many chess pieces are in a jar.” This estimation is split into grade levels to give students a fair chance at a prize. Anderson noted that there would also be a separate category for parents and visitors to guess as well.

Anderson continued. “We have crown cookies that they will be able to frost and put jewels on,” she said. “We’ll have a big castle, which is a prize pull; they pay a quarter, and they pull a prize from it.” Along with these activities, students will be able to design their own wearable crowns. 

“And then, of course, there’s the shopping,” said Anderson.

Krystal Martinson, a mother of two in the Eleva-Strum schools, took both of her children to the Wednesday night book fair event last year. She had been impressed with what the school organized for the event. 

“It was very engaging for children,” said Martinson. “They had a lot of activities for kids to do. They had different games to play.”

Martinson also noted that having Clifford the Dog was a big plus for young students. “They had older students there dressed in character suits that could give hugs and high-fives to the kids. The [student volunteers] seemed very excited about being able to help the younger children.” 

Martinson said they had, “a good variety,” bringing in books for grades pre-K through 6th.

“Prices were very reasonable,” she added. “They were actually running a sale on a lot of the books, which helped.” 

Martinson noted that others in the community enjoyed the event as well. “It was very well received by the public,” Martinson stated. “It was well set-up. I had seen quite a bit of advertising for it as well; they sent home a lot of information for parents. You could tell they had thought the whole thing through.”

Anderson hopes that the community enjoys this year’s fair even more than the year before. “It’s a really neat,” she said of the entire event. “It’s a great place to come to spend time with the kids and interact with them, but also to celebrate reading, and hopefully buy some great books to share together.” Anderson also mentioned that it would be a good time to buy Christmas presents for young readers.

The book fair isn’t just limited to those who have children in the district either. Anyone interested in bringing their child in to enjoy some activities for the night, or anyone simply interested in buying books for children, may come to the fair. The book fair itself will be going on at the Strum Primary School from four o’clock to seven. In the words of Suzie Anderson, “Come one, come all.”

Anderson also noted that the fair in Strum isn’t the only one that the district is putting on. There is also a book fair going on at the Eleva school the same week. The books offered at Eleva will be geared towards the grades 4th through 6th range. However, the fair at Eleva does not offer any family event like the one at Strum.

Community children aren’t the only ones who benefit from the book fair coming to town. The school itself also gains from its work. Last year, the Intermediate school sold a total of $1410.73, while the Primary school sold an impressive $3365.68. Profits from the event were used to bring an author to visit the school in the spring. In addition, the school district was awarded with nearly $570 of credit to choose books and educational materials through Scholastic.

“It’s definitely worthwhile,” Martinson said of the entire book fair experience. She encouraged community members to give the family night event a visit. “It’s a free activity for families to do. It’s not just to shop for books. It’s about participating in activities that relate to a theme to share the joy of reading.” 

As for the students, there is just one thing that Anderson hopes they get out of the entire experience: “The joy of reading. That’s what I really am all about: books,” she stated. Anderson encouraged young students to, “pick up a book. Even if you can’t read the words, look at the pictures. Hold the book, feel the book. Reading takes you anywhere you want to go.”

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