Let children choose the books they like!

For the past 24 years, Scholastic has been organising book fairs in schools, which help fuel a love of reading with the characters students adore.

On Sep 20, 2021

Stories create connections and tie us together wherever we are. Scholastic Book Fairs empower kids to find the stories that speak to them.

“In India over the past 24 years Scholastic has set the trend and benchmark for instilling reading habits in India’s schools. The books being brought into schools in the form of a fair was a novel idea and continues to be an important part of how children choose their books, rather than being chosen for them,” says Shantanu Duttagupta, Head of Publishing, Scholastic India.

The model…

“Scholastic and schools go hand in hand. The ecosystem of teachers, schools, students and parents are entwined with what Scholastic stands for and offers. It’s a two way process,” he says.

Touching lives…

“We have books from PreK right up to teens and Young Adult. Since we have such a large variety of books to offer, we are able to cater to a whole range of needs and preferences. As you can imagine, over the course of 20+ years, we’ve effectively reached out to thousands of students, teachers and parents,” he shares.

On children’s reading habits in India…

“There’s always room for improvement when it comes to reading habits. The most important thing is to give as much access to information and knowledge about the wonderful books that are out there. Building communities, especially social media based communities like Scholastic Reading Family on Facebook have been very critical in engaging and creating space for parents to get recommendations and share experiences,” tells Shantanu.

Innovations in the time of pandemic…

“At Scholastic, we’re constantly innovating. In lieu of the challenges that the pandemic threw up, we brought some amazing programs like Scholastic Super English, Scholastic Writers Academy and of course our own virtual Book Fair platform. We supplement our e-commerce platform with many workshops, activities, author talks, live sessions and other engaging activities for schools. Besides these, we’re always coming up with innovative home-learning solutions to keep children and families engaged and ensure that the learning and reading gap doesn’t widen,” he says. “In this day and age where everything is online, it’s obviously very important.”