I still recall over thirty-five years later the thrill of seeing our third/fourth/fifth/sixth grade teacher come into the classroom with the great boxes of books we had ordered a couple weeks earlier. Seems to me, if memory serves, we got the little four page hand-out and order form once per month. Never could afford more than one or two, but what a thrill it was – a book of your very own. Don’t mock my graying sentimentality unless you were one of the ones to whom a quarter or thirty-five cents was “Big Money, kiddo.” My paperback book shelf is crammed full of those editions which I’ve kept through a dozen moves over the course of my life. Others, like “Miss Pickerell Goes To Mars,” were before my time in grade school, but my library had copies.
I know Scholastic is still around, but I wonder if younger people in our high tech world appreciate them as much as we older folks do. Any twenty-somethings out there with fond memories of Scholastic Book Services (other than the Harry Potter books). Yeah, looking back, there wasn’t a lot of great literature in the bunch, and there were a lot of those “1975 Television Superstars” fluff bio books, but who cares! They were fun in 1975!
Yes! I lost most of my Scholastic books in a garage fire and my mom tossed the rest, but I have very fond memories of them. First poring over the order form, then picking two books, carefully taking the envelope of change to school, then impatiently waiting for the books to arrive, with a new order form!
Your link was a great trip down memory lane. Now where can I find a replacement copy of “Old Bones - The Wonder Horse”? And I’d forgotten about “Miss Pickerel Goes to Mars”.
^^^Exactly the reason I decided to post this. YES! indeed. Or as Richard II said, “Let us sit upon the ground and tell pathetic old fogey stories of the death of Scholastic in the 70s.”
Again, I’m sure kids today enjoy them as well, but there was a time, my friend, there was a time…
I can’t wait to track down a copy of “Powder Keg” and “Strangely Enough”!
My parents indulged me to buy any Scholastic book I wanted, and man, I read a lot of them in grade school. Just recently I helped clean out shelves of them from Mom’s home.
God, that used to be so awesome! Remember how it also had “Hang in there!” kitten posters and computer software on floppy disks? The actually floppy kind?
I remember ordering books from Scholastic in the 70s. My parents were pretty good about letting me get whatever I wanted (big readers, both of them). I still have a box full of the books I ordered as a kid.
I’m 29 and I used to love getting those Scholastic handouts at school!
My family was poor so I rarely got to buy any books, but the few I did get I still have. I remember I got a book of names and their meanings and I really loved looking stuff up in it.
Danny Dunn, Encylopedia Brown, The Thinking Machine, and some book about norwegian children smuggling gold past occupying Nazis. “Treasure in the Snow”, maybe?
Ooh, I hadn’t thought about “Miss Pickerel” in over 40 years!!
I wish I had my old SB collection!
Anybody got a link to their selections from the early 60’s?
I always ran home with it after school to see which ones Mom would pay for, and which came out of my allowance. And, as Zsofia pointed out, you mustn’t forget the posters - which came so folded that the creases wouldn’t come out, no matter how tightly you tried to fasten them on the wall!
The other awesome thing you could order through Scholastic was **
Dynamite** magazine. That was just the coolest thing ever!
I loved getting those flyers. I always got a book or three!
My son’s kindergarten teacher didn’t bother with them – so I took over and collected the money and did the ordering for her, so my kids would have a chance to participate. Sadly, these days it seems there’s a lot of crap packaged with books (most of which feature licensed characters) but there are still gems to be found, yep.
Wow there is something I hadn’t thought about for a while.
I had the "hang in there’ kitten poster!
I remember the world of possibility that seemed to lurk in that handout. I remember debating back and forth how best to ask my mom for some money. Looking back I guess she always would shell out for books, but at the time it seemed like an awful lot to ask. So I’d carefully decide exactly what I wanted to ask for, always trying to maximize the books I got without going overboard.
I too remember that smell, and how proud I felt putting those books in my backpack…
I’d almost forgotten.