Book Magic Takes Over Elementary School

More stories from Susana Echeverri Lopez

The Columbus School Book Fair was held in the elementary school February 21- 24, as an opportunity for students to easily find books they enjoy.

At the Lower Elementary coliseum, hundreds of books were sold to members of the school community who had the opportunity to both browse and purchase a variety of books and educational games.

“All students from K4-5th grade have an opportunity to visit the Book Fair. But, this is a community event, so everyone is invited and many parents, teachers and staff members drop by,” Tamara Irons, Elementary School Librarian, said.

Many different genres of books for all grade levels were for sale at the fair. Books written in English were organized by grade levels and books written in Spanish were organized by topics.

“Kids really enjoy it. They find books for all ages that are really good. I think it is easy that they can buy their books at school, especially because many books in English are not so easily found in the stores here,” Paula Garces, K5 teacher, said.

The book fair is an event for all of the school, especially for students who enjoy looking for the books of their choice. Students first go to the book fair on a preview day and examine books of interest, later they return by class or with a pass to buy the books they selected.

“I am happy they included the book fair here because sometimes you read all the books you have at home so you can buy new ones here,” Tomas Saenz, 5th grader, said.

The book fair is an annual event that has become a tradition at TCS and each year new books are offered to the improve the quality of the fair.

“Every year their are many new and interesting books and every time the coliseum gets decorated better,” Juanita Martinez, 4A student said.

The event is still missing improvements as many times books students have in their list are not found, and others argue on high prices. One problem students commented on was that book series’ where not complete, for example the Harry Potter series.

“I think the book fair is really cool because it has a lot of good books, but this year I think there are books missing because they don´t bring whole collections, and instead only 2 books from the collection,” Pablo Arango, 5B student.