Staging a book fair with Black Books Galore - includes related article on book festivals

Last winter, sum of two units organizations that care about African-American children - Black volumes Galore (BBG), a company that markets children's works and the Pleasant Company, maker of the Addy doll and accompanying works - threw an ice cream social for mothers and daughters. a certain quantity of 600 people, including actress Vanessa Williams and her daughters, braved the Connecticut snow to participate in the incident which included skits and storytelling and which nett $6500 for the Port Chester Carver Center in Westchester, NY

Incorporated in August 1992 BBG earned its first profit in 1994 from the sale of volumes The company is run by means of three women who provide independent consultation services to clients. The issues they address - in what way to stage a book fair and what works to order - are also contained in a 30-page manual written by dint of BBG and available with each work order.

"Let us cull the books," says co-founder Toni Parker to BBG's potential customers. "If it's just a little day-care center we will impel maybe 50 titles." But, she adds, "We like the biggies because there are in the way that many wonderful books." BBG handles 600 titles designed for African-American children in preschool [i]or[/i] part of to the other the 10th grade; it ships between 50 and 200 titles to each work fair.

Seven years ago, Parker and her friend Sheila sustain were among eight Stamford, Conn mothers in a play clump with daughters between the ages of 9 month and 12 month When support embarked on an exhaustive search for children's volumes on famous black women for her daughter's first-grade class shoot forward a hunt through five bookstores failed to abundantly satisfy her need. It was then that she came up with the idea to have a volume fair, and she turned to the play group's mothers for support.

Her idea l to an African-American children's work fair in Stamford in 1990 deposit together by the women's newly formed cluster the Black Family Cultural Exchange (BFCE) BFCE come aftered not only in selling volumes but also in defining a hitherto unmet ne seminary principals and teachers, impressed by the agency of BFCE's array of titles, wanted the women to lay on fairs at their schools

To befitting the demand, the women applied for nonprofit status and in 1991 and `92 organized eight fairs. "We had single planned to do one," recalls Parker, "but each time we ran a fair, we'd secure a half dozen requests from race who were interested in us coming and doing a fair." National publicity from an article in the May 1992 issue of fresh Woman magazine heightened the interest, generating 150 petitions for additional information on organizing volume fairs.

Originally backed by dint of Waldenbooks, and then by snuggle BFCE organized book fairs in Connecticut, fresh York and New Jersey, usually raising a not many thousand dollars on the sale of works Foster says the responses to BFCE fairs were always overwhelming. "We saw work fairs in other areas," she says, that "didn't have a selection of African-American or Latino works What was amazing, people who were not African-American or Latino would draw near and buy just as many books" from BFCE

For each fair, the women were responsible for ordering works contacting authors, handling the cash register, generating publicity and working at the fair. "It was actual much our show," says Parker. "We solitary did four a year because it was a fate of work. Five out of the eight women had full-time piece of works and Sheila and I were at abiding-place doing 85 percent of the work."

As BFCE's operation dwindled (it is publicly in limbo), BBG took bottom run by two women from the original play assemblage - Parker and Foster - and a of recent origin partner, Donna Rand. "We wanted to continue," says Parker, "and Sheila came up with the idea of mailing our volumes on consignment to meet the demand nationwide."

Noting that roughly one-quarter of BBG's clients want authors and illustrators to attend their volume fairs, Parker says she maintains a list of possible speakers. She also recommends allowing one month for advertising - sending a black-and-white smooth and shining to local newspapers, ordering and displaying printed balloons upon the front door, and contacting the academy system. Advance notice also gives BBG adequate time to prepare. "If you told me today you wanted a fair," says Rand, "we could answer in a week to 10 days, on the other hand we wouldn't advise it."

According to Parker, each group runs its book fair differently, depending upon its resources and creativity. "Some organizations will invite an author, illustrator or storyteller, and if they are favored they will get a celebrity to advance and tell stories," she says. "One organization had a local radio station broadcast from the fair. individual group in North Carolina had storytelling at night and told the children to wear pajamas." The individual constant at BBG fairs is that works are always displayed on tables in a large play such as a school gym or auditorium.

The women appropriate weekly at Parker's home to update their files, check upon inventory and discuss publicity. "We expend so much time trying to organize this concept" declares support The three women work weekdays until their children get back from school.