Parents, Vote With Withheld Dollars Bring Back Literature “Scholastic” Book Club Sells Too Much Drivel.

Fri., Sept. 29, 2000

Monica Hillard

You know the school year is kicking into high gear when book order forms are sent home with the kids. Of course, parents expect to see offerings of classic books, historical novelettes, biographies, math puzzles and science supplements. But this year many parents did a double take when they looked at the newest selections being offered to elementary school children.

Guess the folks at Scholastic Book Club aren’t making enough money off Harry Potter, Pokemon and Captain Underpants. Now, along with these commercial giants, it is promoting a growing number of cultural icons. You can’t miss them. They stare you in the face from every page of the flyers. Such “role models” for kindergarten-through-sixth-graders as bubble gum rockers Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, ‘N Sync and the Backstreet Boys - and pro wrestlers like Dwayne Johnson (a.k.a. “The Rock”).

You’d think it was enough that kid channels Nickelodeon, Disney and Fox Family play the bubble gum videos and Cable TV gives air time to pro wrestling. Now, the school book clubs are getting into the act too - and educators are sending home book forms promoting these same questionable characters as role models.

We can picture the results: little boys body-slamming each other in the hallways and cursing like WWF wrestlers. Little girls running around schools as scantily clad as Britney or Christina, and gyrating to the love ‘em and leave ‘em lyrics of one of the boy bands. Talk about exploitation. There must be a lot of money to be made by targeting the 5- to 11-year-old market with such decadent drivel.

Granted, this fluff most likely makes the book sellers more money than classics like “Tom Sawyer” or Newberry Award-winning books like “Caddie Woodlawn.” Perhaps a Britney biography is more sensational than Abe Lincoln’s. But do we really want our kids reading such mind-numbing nonsense? (Oh yes, “Get the scoop with amazing full color photos!”)

Why are respectable book clubs competing with teen magazines like Tiger Beat? What’s so scholastic about this junk, anyway?

Book clubs would do better if they would try to elevate children’s taste in reading, rather than bring it down. But as long as book clubs continue to pander to pulp appetites, parents can do their part, too - by refusing to send back money in those book-order envelopes.

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