28 Vintage Book Club Mailers

Remember book fairs in elementary school, when the cafeteria was transformed into a magical young-adult Barnes and Noble? Those were the days.

But how did you get your lit fix in between book fairs? Book flyers and newsletters from Teach, of course, from Scholastic and Troll, advertising the latest offerings from The Baby-Sitters Club (oh Stacey, take your insulin!) or Choose Your Own Adventure (Oops, you plunged down an endless chasm; go back to page 54 and try not to mess up this time).

Admit it, you hoarded these flyers in your room, painstakingly circling and starring the ones you wanted, you little word nerd. SHUTTUP, MY FRIENDS ARE IN THOSE PAGES!!!

(While Scholastic News was different from the book orders, we thought this issue seemed relevant.)

Hillary Buckholtz is editor of the nostalgia website I'm Remembering!

Special thanks to The Evil King Macrocranios (aka toy robot enthusiast Steve) for digging most of these out of stack of childhood school papers. Thanks also to Shawn Robare of Branded In The 80s for bringing our attention to them.

related:// 13 Old Cartoons You Didn't Think Anyone Else Watched

Email This

hot on the web

Comments

Add a comment

3.23.11

By Poppy.Orwell

Neutral

Oh wow FLASHBACK!

I got a book on "fancy lettering" and all my classmates wanted me to do their title pages for them. I guess that was partly why I was 'voted' "Most Likely To Become A Disney Animator" in grade 8! (but now I'm an accountant [sigh])

I also had that Kittens in a Row poster! Such good kitties.

3.23.11

By deebee

Highest Rank

Wow.. the memories I have of these. Oh too be young again. I miss those days!

3.23.11

By megan

Highest Rank

OK, this is too weird. I was just thinking about those old mailers & how I'd be so excited about ordering books at school, & not even a day later I see this post reblogged on tumblr.

3.24.11

By Joanna

Highest Rank

Oh the memories. I used to get so excited when my order of baby sitters club books arrived.

3.30.11

By julezyme

Neutral

Wow. I totally ordered "The Dollhouse Murders" from one of these in third grade.

3.25.11

By Gretta

Neutral

I remember the look of those from the 80's because as a child of the 80's, I used to bring them home and beg my Mom to buy me something. She always bought me at least one book each flyer. We are homeschoolers and hate that we can't order from those little flyers anymore but we love your online store!

bamagv at aol dot com
grettajohns.blogspot.com

3.30.11

By watrq

Neutral

You can still get those books from Scholastic on their website! I LOVED those flyers and LOVE passing them out to my students today :)

3.25.11

By Stacey

Neutral

I think I had every Cynthia Voight book published and it all started with Dicey's Song :)
My mad horse drawing skills are a result of the super exciting "How to Draw Horses".

3.25.11

By Melissa

Neutral

Thank you so much for sharing these! We had the Scholastic/Apple book flyers in Australia too, and my parents didn't often buy books from them for me, but the ones I had were cherished and I still have them! It seemed like endless weeks until the books arrived but it was so exciting when they did!

@Poppy.Orwell - I wonder if your book was The Lettering Book - that was massively popular in Australia as well!

3.26.11

By Bridge

Neutral

We had these when i was growing up In PNG. Luckily my mum had a thing for books as much as my brother and I did; I was allowed to order as many as I wanted. Funnily enough thanks to this book club by the time I got to high school in Australia I had inadvertantly read most of the books on the reading list for year 8 - 12. Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, To Kill a Mocking Bird, all read without knowing they were meant to be amazing, and falling in love with them without thinking they were boring school books.

I hope when I have kids I can get them as excited about books using Scholastic.

3.26.11

By CAF

Neutral

I LOVE this. I was a huge bookworm as a kid, and I still am, so book orders were a big deal for me. I remember getting all happy when I'd see the big box in the classroom, and it would irk me when the teacher took too long to sort all of the orders.

3.26.11

By asheisele

Highest Rank

But I don't see the Kirk Cameron poster. WHERE IS THE KIRK CAMERON POSTER?

3.27.11

By Tafadhali

Neutral

Haha, what a flashback! I have read a not insignificant portion of these books -- I just kept going through and being like, "I TOTALLY READ THE TRAPPED IN A LIBRARY ONE."

But even reading a description of "A Taste of Blackberries" makes me want to cry, NGL.

3.28.11

By Crystal

Neutral

I always had to get a Boxcar Children book. Still have them too. Now my son brings home these flyers and we sit and look through them and he points out all the books he wants, brings back wonderful memories for me and makes wonderful memories for him!

3.29.11

By terry

Neutral

WOW! I was just thinking about those paper thin scholastic order forms yesterday. I also used to circle a lot of the books and stickers I wanted, only to forget about returning the form until days later! I did get that break dancing book though :) Ahhh, good times.... *sigh*

3.29.11

By Auguste

Neutral

I actually specifically remember the Dune storybook one. As I scrolled down I thought, "and Heathcliff" and sure enough there it was.

My mind is far too haphazard in its memory. I forget my wallet everywhere I go. But I remember a specific Scholastic order form from when I was 10.

3.31.11

By sue

Neutral

I used to buy books from those fliers. Kinda wonder what some of the companies were thinking, though. On book I got was about a girl who got pregnant and another was about a 14 year old girl who ran away from home. A pimp made her his prostitute and roughed her up. Rather serious subjects for a 7th grader! My mom would have freaked out if she knew what I was reading. Ha ha.

4.30.11

By GregHolch

Neutral

What a nice trip down memory lane. I was the manager of the TAB book club for more than 20 years, and I selected all the books on the February 1987 "student news" pages shown above. You'd be surprised to know the amount of time and effort that the Scholastic book club managers take to select each book and place it on the page. Some of the books were created especially for the book clubs. For instance, The Petrova Twist (The Protectors #1) is the first book in a series that I created with Brenda Bowen, who was another editor working at Scholastic. The author was R.L. Stine, writing under the pseudonym of Zackary Blue. Another little known fact: the TAB book club managers before me were Ellen Miles and Ann M. Martin, both of whom have gone onto great success as children's book writers. I also note that these were the days when each book club offering had 35-40 books. The Scholastic book clubs are still going strong, and offer up to 100 books each month. I am no longer at Scholastic, I am in library school, but I want to thank you for this posting.