# Were you a Scholastic Book Clubber Too? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 7, 2008, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433 "2008-09-07T01:36:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sir\_Rhosis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@Sir\_Rhosis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Rhosis)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2008, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433/21 "2008-09-07T04:31:36Z")
^^^Not sure, but I do remember books called “Arrow” books but I think they were an age-based subset of Scholastic. Glad everyone is digging the thread and the memories it evokes. Sir Rhosis ---
**Author:** ![BiblioCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@BiblioCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BiblioCat)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2008, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433/22 "2008-09-07T04:34:28Z")
> [@PerditaX](#): > > The other awesome thing you could order through Scholastic was **Dynamite** magazine. That was just the coolest thing ever! 😃 I remember that! Yes, it was amazingly cool. ---
**Author:** ![Momofgirls](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/momofgirls/32/21798_2.png) [@Momofgirls](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Momofgirls)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2008, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433/23 "2008-09-07T04:57:11Z")
> [@Sir\_Rhosis](#): > > ^^^Not sure, but I do remember books called “Arrow” books but I think they were an age-based subset of Scholastic. Arrow is for grades 4-5-6, and they are under Scholastic. In my daughter’s school, both Scholastic and Arrow fliers are sent home with kids in grades 3 and up. We can order off of both, but send in just one check. ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2008, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433/24 "2008-09-07T05:03:40Z")
I used to use these order forms also when I was in school from the mid 80’s to mid 90’s. I don’t recall ever seeing floppy disks, though. I do remember getting the books for Karate Kid and Karate Kid Part II, which were basically the transcripts for these movies made into novel form. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2008, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433/25 "2008-09-07T05:12:07Z")
I still have a couple of Scholastic books. One is The Missing Persons League, which was a rather dark story for junior high kids. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2008, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433/26 "2008-09-07T06:02:11Z")
I ordered books from them in the early 1960s, and my daughter did 10 years ago, so they seem to be quite active still. I got **Challenge of the Spaceship** by Arthur C. Clarke from them, which kicked my sf habit into high gear. Still have it and a crappy Silverberg book from the same order. As for Scholastic as a publisher, remember they did Harry Potter in the US, and, with slightly lower sales, they published three books my wife wrote. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2008, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433/27 "2008-09-07T06:23:18Z")
The first book I ever bought (ok, my parents bought it, but I picked it out and it was mine, mine, mine!) was from Scholastic. _Where the Wild Things Are_, and it came with a floppy vinyl 45 record of someone reading the book. Long gone, now. ☹ I think I may still have my copy of _Old Bones_, **The Blue-Sighted Shadow**. Somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2008, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433/28 "2008-09-07T06:25:36Z")
I definitely remember the Scholastic catalogs from the 70’s. I ordered a ton of books from that thing. I loved all the Danny Dunn and Encyclopedia Brown books, Henry Reed, Miss Piggle Wiggle, Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators, a lot of Beverly Clearly. _The Lemonade Trick_ (there were a bunch of other “Trick” books too, but that’s the only title I remember) I do remember reading _Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars_, but I don’t remember if I got it from Scholastic or a library. I seem to remember Judy Blume books being hot commodities because they were supposedly “dirty.” Looking back at them now, they were as safe as milk, but I guess it was shocking in the early-mid 70’s to even see the word “period” or “penis” in a children’s book. ---
**Author:** ![bufftabby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/77aa72/32.png) [@bufftabby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bufftabby)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2008, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433/29 "2008-09-07T06:35:48Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > a crappy Silverberg book No such thing! I’m 25, and we had Scholastic until high school. My favorite part was always the book fair. I had my walls covered with every animal poster from them as well. They were my number one decorative source as a child. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2008, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433/30 "2008-09-07T06:40:17Z")
Great nostalgia thread. I still have at least one of them- a little book on George Washington. I remember one that I got on Ben Franklin when I was in 3rd grade that told some anecdotes about him I never forgot and have used in analogies and quotes (looking up the original source obviously, not “according to a book I read in 3rd grade…”) as recently as this year! Amazing how things stay with you. (The one I used was about Franklin becoming irritated by a blowhard with an enormous house, a dinner table that serves dozens of people even though he rarely has guests, a coach with 4 horses- in other words conspicuous ostentation to the nth degree- and justifies it all with “because I can afford it”; Franklin asks him “why is your hat so small? Couldn’t you easily afford one that’s 20 times the size of your head?” and it’s not just the quote I remembered but the cartoonish picture (one suitable for a 3rd grade children’s book). And they were so cheap IIRC, even adjusted for inflation. Weren’t the books usually under 1? I do remember that DYNAMITE was .75 when I was in 3rd Grade. (I wonder if any libraries have back issues of DYNAMITE— or of Weekly Reader for that matter.) I wish I could remember one titles I bought- it was about the Lincoln Assassination and though it was for children/YAs it had pictures of the hangings and the trials with the defendants shackled. It was just awesome to a morbid kid! I’ve wanted to find the title for a story I’m writing (but admittedly I haven’t tried that diligently). Sorry for any tangent, but thanks for the memories. (Weirdly I associate Scholastic Books with macrame, because we made macrame plant hangers for our mothers on Christmas when I was in about 4th grade or so and the books came in that day, so I was reading the book on famous American ghosts (still remember the subject) with one hand instead of doing whatever it is I was supposed to be doing to the rope with that hand and got fussed at by my teacher! (Good thing it wasn’t the Lincoln Conspiracy book or I might have made the plant hanger into a noose.) ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2008, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433/31 "2008-09-07T09:24:28Z")
I got a lot of Peanuts books that way. So did Mr. Rilch. When we combined our libraries, we had a lot of duplicates. (They are fast being made fully redundant by the new Fantagraphics collections.) ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2008, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433/32 "2008-09-07T10:58:17Z")
\ [http://www.scholastic.com/kids/home.htm](http://www.scholastic.com/kids/home.htm) ---
**Author:** ![auRa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@auRa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/auRa)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2008, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433/33 "2008-09-07T11:44:51Z")
This was one of the good parts about being in an international school: twice a year, we got Scholastic, which was American, _and_ Puffin, which was British. I was such a book junkie (still am), and my parents encouraged me to order as much as possible from them. I remember being really bitter, though, when they wouldn’t let me order some sort of sticker set or what have you and someone else in my class had got it. ---
**Author:** ![UntouchedTakeaway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d78d45/32.png) [@UntouchedTakeaway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UntouchedTakeaway)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2008, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433/34 "2008-09-07T11:47:55Z")
YES!!! Me!!! I was a member, too!!! I still have my copy of “Adopted Jane”! 😃 VCNJ~ ---
**Author:** ![manx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@manx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manx)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2008, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433/35 "2008-09-07T12:27:03Z")
Yup, we had them in NZ in the late 80s/early 90s. There were two separate four page flyers that would come out, I think - Lucky, which was for younger readers, and Arrow, which was for older kids. My brothers and I were allowed $10 each, and I would get the latest Baby-Sitters Club book, and normally stickers or a poster. I bought a Tamora Pierce novel through them, because it had a wolf on the cover, which kickstarted a fantasy obsession that lasted through my teens. We were doublely lucky, because my aunt worked for Ashton Scholastics (the NZ/Australian distributor) and every month would give us a box of misprinted and end of run books. I never lacked for anything to read, and the older I get the more grateful I am for that. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2008, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433/36 "2008-09-07T12:39:49Z")
**Sir Rhosis** , you mentioned these: Old Bones-The Wonder Horse > **[Old Bones Wonder Horse - AbeBooks](https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&tn=Old%2BBones%2BWonder%2BHorse&x=0&y=0)** > > Old Bones, the Wonder Horse by Pace, Mildred Mastin and a great selection of related books, art and collectibles available now at AbeBooks.com. Powder Keg > **[Powder Keg - AbeBooks](https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&tn=Powder%2BKeg&x=79&y=20)** > > Powder Keg: Or the Gunpowder Smugglers by Donald E. Cooke and a great selection of related books, art and collectibles available now at AbeBooks.com. Lots of books with that title, check(currently)#9 and 13, by Donald Cooke Strangely Enough > **[Strangely Enough - AbeBooks](https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&tn=Strangely%2BEnough&x=88&y=16)** > > Strangely Enough by Colby, C. B. and a great selection of related books, art and collectibles available now at AbeBooks.com. Snow Treasure > **[0590425374 - Snow Treasure - AbeBooks](https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?isbn=0590425374&sts=t&tn=Snow%2BTreasure&x=66&y=7)** > > Snow Treasure by Mcswigan, Marie and a great selection of related books, art and collectibles available now at AbeBooks.com. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2008, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433/37 "2008-09-07T12:52:39Z")
There was a short window of time during my childhood where I was very materially spoiled. I remember bringing those Scholastic order forms home with about ten things circled… and getting every one. I absolutely LOVED it; it was like Christmas. Book Fairs were great too. I remember when I first got to high school, there were announcements posted all over that there was going to be a book fair. I was _so excited._ When the big day finally came, I walked into my school library and promptly discovered… the Book Fair was for the kindergartners who shared our building. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![HongKongFooey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c4cdca/32.png) [@HongKongFooey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HongKongFooey)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2008, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433/38 "2008-09-07T13:01:46Z")
> [@Sir\_Rhosis](#): > > 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. My oldest started kindergarten last year and they received fliers 5 or 6 times throughout the year. Right now she’s more excited about the ordering of the books then when they arrive. The book I remember the most from my school years ('70s) was Alfred Hitchcock’s _Happiness is a Warm Corpse_; arrived just in time for Halloween, I can’t guess how many times I read that book. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2008, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433/39 "2008-09-07T13:17:02Z")
> [@The\_Blue-Sighted\_Shadow](#): > > Your link was a great trip down memory lane. Now where can I find a replacement copy of “Old Bones - The Wonder Horse”? You’ll get my copy when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2008, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433/40 "2008-09-07T13:29:43Z")
> [@PerditaX](#): > > The other awesome thing you could order through Scholastic was \*\* > Dynamite\*\* magazine. That was just the coolest thing ever! 😃 I was just trying to think of the name of that glitzy pop culture magazine Scholastic put out. Thanks! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-you-a-scholastic-book-clubber-too/462433.md?page=3)