5 Ways to Run an Awesome Book Fair

Here at Glenthorne High School we recently held our annual Scholastic Book Fair and it was a huge success. Here are five ways to make your book fair a hit.

1. Promote

This might seem like an obvious one but it is crucial to having a successful event. It can be tempting to simply send off the pre-generated letter to parents. You've got to do a lot more than that. Go to whole school assemblies. Go to year group assemblies. Visit classrooms, put it in your school newsletter. Speak about it at staff meetings. Have student library assistants post ads up in the restrooms. Have it rotating around on school tv monitors if you have them. Speak to students in classes and library lessons. Have students visit tutor time (homerooms) in the morning before school and promote it.  I also act as a carnival barker during the fair, promoting the books loudly in an attempt to get the children excited about them. It will all pay off!

2. Turn it into a competition

This will really get the students fired up. We are lucky to have a built-in House system so all of the students belong to four different houses. Our system this year was to give each House one day of the week when our book fair was on. They could create a House team through a sign up process and their job was to sell as many books as they could. Knowing that they were up against the other Houses set the stage for a great week of fierce selling. Staff members that are House Captains come in and promote the book fair in the Library and around the school during their day.

3. Prepare the students for selling

This was a fun one. In a stealthy move, I trained the students to be powerful book sellers without them really knowing it. How did I do this? Through a game I like to call "A Book a Minute!" In the weeks leading up to the Book Fair, all students in Years 7 and 8 (ages 11-12) played A Book A Minute in their library lesson.

The rules are simple. I ask the students to imagine that they have just finished an amazing book and they want to make their best friend read it as well. I ask them to think of the things that they need to talk about in order to make their friend interested in the book. The catch is that they only have 1 minute to do this. We discuss things like characters, setting, plot (no spoilers!) and similar books. Then, when it comes time for the book fair, I've got a set of trained students on the floor pitching books like experts. 

4. Give students control

It can be tempting to try and take over or be the lead when you have a few years running a book fair. After this year I am more than happy to let the students take control. Through effective promotion, I was able to have older students ages 15 and up assist the students who were ages 11 and 12 but still wanted to take part. It was a huge success. Let the students pitch the books, organise the library the way they want and round up their school mates to come in and buy books. Again, it will all pay off in the end. 

5. Get staff involved

This year I brought the book fair to the teachers. They are all busy and stretched to the limit so making a trip to the Library might not be something that is on their radar. I brought the fair to the staff room at break and lunch and had a small collection of books to sell. This not only generated more sales, it brought in several teachers to the Library the next day to see the wider selection. 

This goes somewhat hand in hand with step number one but can be an easy one to overlook. We are lucky because our House Leaders are all staff members and I was constantly keeping them up to date on the competition and getting them involved. Sending out invites to other staff and speaking out in staff briefing or other meetings is another great way to get staff in the library to take part. It's a lot of fun to see the students pitching the books to staff members and it introduces the library to new faces. 

Using these methods we were able to break last year's record by selling £821.65 worth of books in 5 days. Considering that all books were being sold at half price, I couldn't be more proud of our students for their dedication and hard work. Congratulations to them. I am keeping the House winner secret until next week but the winning team will be revealed soon!