Scholastic Book Fair

Does anyone else remember the Scholastic Book Fair from your elementary school days? As it turns out, it exists in New Zealand. In the schools, kids are sent home with the thinner-than-newspaper flyers full of book options to convince their parents they need. I’ve been pleasantly surprised that the prices from the flyers were the best I’ve seen in New Zealand where reading material seems unnaturally expensive.

Then I discovered the Scholastic Book Sales, and it was like hitting a jackpot. Somehow on my Facebook feed, an ad popped up for a four day sale in Auckland and Christchurch. I only glanced at it, but thought it sounded worth checking out. Of course I could never remember the details, but I managed to track down the event on the Scholastic page.

I ended up in a warehouse in east Tamaki that was filled with boxes of books, and the nostalgic rolling metal cases. It was your typical bargain sale that requires time to dig through the boxes to find the treasures you never knew you needed:

At the very least, the books were 50% off the usual Scholastic price. However, there was a huge selection of books that ranged from NZ$1 for paperback novels (of which I picked out five from one of our favorite series to read with my son) to NZ $6. I even found a wonderful hardback copy of Jon Muth’s Zen Ghosts for NZ$3!

So if you’re a little dismayed at book prices, especially now that GST is added to online orders and Book Depository isn’t as cheap anymore, the Scholastic sales are worth a look. No, the selection isn’t limitless or well organized, but there is a lot to choose from, at least by New Zealand standards.