You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Scholastic has been accused of using its classroom book clubs in the United States to push video games, jewelry kits and toy cars.
The New York Times reports that the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, an advocacy group based in Boston, said that it had reviewed monthly fliers distributed by Scholastic last year and found that one-third of the items sold in these brochures were either not books or books packaged with other items.
Based on a review of brochures in Scholastic’s Lucky Club for children in second and third grade, and its Arrow Club for fourth through sixth graders, the group said that 14 percent of the items were not books, while an additional 19 percent were books sold with other trinkets like stickers, posters and toys.
Susan Linn, the campaign's director, said: "Marketing in schools is a privilege and not a right. Scholastic is abusing that privilege."
Judy Newman, president of Scholastic Book Clubs, saifd she stood by every product contained in the catalogue. "We work with teachers to make sure that items are O.K. to put out in their classrooms. In a class of 24 kids, some of them will be turned on by a game, and it helps kids engage in the book club process."