Margaret Good, Librarian at Eastern Pulaski Elementary School, talks about this year’s Book Fair.
Margaret Good, Eastern Pulaski Elementary School Librarian, promotes reading with the school’s annual book fair on September 21 – 25, 2015.
The brain is a muscle that needs exercised, and reading develops the mind and generates focus. Reading is an important function of daily life that helps people learn about world, understand other people, and discover new things.
“Reading is a fundament of functioning in society. It’s important to develop those skills,” says Margaret Good, Librarian at Eastern Pulaski Elementary School in Winamac, IN. “Reading to your children is a bonding experience.”
Good believes that reading with children, even older children, gets them involved in the story. One of the biggest difficulties for some children, she says, is to get them to finish a whole book.
“It takes a lot of focus to finish a book.” Reading together will get them interested and even develops interest in reluctant readers.
“My most important job,” Good says, “is to get kids interested in books.” She hooks them up with materials that interest them and shows them that reading can be fun. One way she does this is by hosting the annual Book Fair.
For the past twenty-five years, Eastern Pulaski Elementary School has hosted a book fair offering all kinds of books from non-fiction to puzzle books and art. Of course, there are also fiction books of many kinds. She offers a variety of age and reading levels to accommodate all readers. Even the middle school students come over to purchase books.
The most popular books at the book fair are based on movies from Disney and The Minions. Another popular book with both boys and girls, and sold out early, is Minecraft, a guide to the video game.
The last few years, the school has been using Lowry’s Books & More as a provider for the book fair. “The give us a bigger percentage, and that is important to me so I can get more books for the library.” Good discovered the purchase date was thirty years ago on some of the library’s books. “We had football books about teams that no longer existed. Now we have a full set of current football books.”
Lowry’s Books also offers a better price range, from $2 to $25, to make it easier for students to buy books. They do not offer toys for book fairs, just bookmarks, pencils, and erasers.
“I am so very pleased with the parent participation,” Good says. “I also want to thank all the former employees, and my daughter, who come out to help make this a success.”
