Boston-based ‘The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood’ has concluded that publishing group Scholastic unfairly uses its book club for peripheral advertising. When assessing the monthly fliers that the publisher distributes among the schools and pupils that participate in their book club, Boston CCFC found that 14 percent of the items on Scholastic’s book club fliers were not books, while an additional 19 percent were books sold with mechandise like stickers, posters and toys.

Susan Linn, director of CCFC, reminded Scholastic that marketing in schools is a privilege and should be regarded that way.

“The message that children get when books are marketed with other items is that a book in and of itself isn’t enough. And what it does is encourage children to choose books based not on the content but on what they get with it.”

When contacted, Scholastic said that 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.