Want to start your own free book fair? Here’s how to get started

What everyday events in school life can inadvertently isolate students experiencing poverty and their families?

Researcher Paul Gorski asked this question to students and their families in focus groups while researching his book on eliminating inequality of opportunity.

For many families – especially with primary school-aged children – book fairs were the answer.

“There are many things in that category that families can do to give their children a sense of belonging, and the children of families that can’t do that don’t have access to that sense of belonging,” said Gorski, the founder of the Equity Literacy Institute, an organization that provides professional learning and training on equity. “Book fairs, yearbooks, field trips. All of these things that public schools supposedly provide for free come at a high cost.”

School-based book fairs are common and popular. Although fairs are often used as an opportunity for school librarians to raise money and purchase books for their collection, Gorski says they can also widen the gap between families who can afford new books and toys and those who can’t.

Some librarians found it difficult to see students not being able to build their own book collections like their fellow students. For this reason, some librarians have created alternative book fairs to fill this gap. At these fairs, all students can choose new books for their own private library for free, and no one feels like they are missing out.

Collecting high-interest, popular new titles can take a year, says Julia Stivers, a librarian at Carolina Friends School in North Carolina who started what she calls the “real book fairs” eight years ago. But it’s worth it, she says.

“These aren’t books that nobody wants, are they? That wouldn’t be a fair book fair. That wouldn’t feel right to me. I wanted the same energy as a traditional book fair,” she said. “But that’s entirely possible, even if you have a huge school.”

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