What Is SkyTree Book Fairs? A "New" Scholastic Competitor

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/writer of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/writer of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her subsequent e-book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen.

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If 2021 and 2022 have been about banning books to get consideration for right-wing causes, then 2023 will be dubbed the start of the push to dismantle e-book gala’s by these identical teams and people. They’re nonetheless banning books, in fact, however now, extra time and a focus–and certainly, cash–are on the coronary heart of calls for to finish college and library e-book gala’s by conventional retailers like Scholastic. Censorship makes an attempt in school e-book gala’s have been on the rise, and in September, we rang the alarm. Things have been getting worse, partly due to right-wing, Christian publishers like Brave Books amping up their bases. But a humorous factor has occurred within the time between Brave Books declaring warfare on Scholastic Book Fairs and now. Brave Books’s e-book truthful arm appears to have disappeared and a brand new competitor to conventional, professionally-curated e-book gala’s has emerged: SkyTree Book Fairs. But what’s SkyTree Book Fairs?

First, it ought to be famous that Brave Books nonetheless has on their web site that they provide e-book gala’s. But the place as soon as it was attainable to request info for internet hosting one among their e-book gala’s, the data has disappeared. Instead, the rhetoric round why Scholastic e-book gala’s are dangerous stays and as does rationale as to why an alternate is so desperately wanted.

screen shot of brave book's book fair landing page.

The above display screen shot is from Brave Books’s Book Fair touchdown web page on November 27. But it differs from the language discovered on the web site, whereby they famous providing e-book gala’s starting in spring 2024. The beneath is from the Wayback Machine, dated September 14, 2023. Somewhere between then and the subsequent time that the web site was crawled, October 16, 2023, the language about reserving occasions disappered.

Image of brave books book fairs website from September 14, 2023.

But a curious new web site with a widely known conservative movie star hero, Kirk Cameron, emerged on November 8, 2023, corresponding with a right-wing media blitz: SkyTree Book Fairs.

Google results for the pub date of SkyTree Books.

SkyTree Book Fairs made its launch in early November and the language used on their web site about why they have been created is curiously much like that from Brave Books. Here’s Brave Books:

Screen shot of Brave Books's book fair landing page talking at length about the dangers of scholastic.

Here’s SkyTree:

Screen shot of SkyTree book fair landing page talking at length about the dangers of scholastic.

It’s attention-grabbing, isn’t it, that each of them confer with the identical complete report they’ve written exposing Scholastic? Perhaps it’s as a result of they’re truly one and the identical factor, with one large distinction. Where Brave Books is a money-making writer, SkyTree Book Fairs has been included not simply as a separate entity, however as a 501c3 not-for-profit group. Indeed, “fundraising” to host these e-book gala’s throughout the nation is crucial to SkyTree’s non-profit mannequin, so it is sensible they’d spin off their e-book truthful arm from the publishing arm. It doubtless helps to have a bit of distance from Brave Books itself, given how those that could make choices concerning the books accessible in faculties and libraries are good at Googling and understand how a lot Brave Books respect their establishments and professionals.

At least one one that labored for Brave Books is now employed by SkyTree, too. That’s Riley Lee–former Head of Finance and Administration at Brave Books turned Head of Book Fairs for SkyTree. Not to say that SkyTree obtained a pleasant increase on the Conroe Independent School District (TX) lately–SkyTree and Brave Books are each situated in Conroe–due to an worker at Brave Books. As reported by Frank Strong:

Before both of them spoke [Riley Lee and Brave Books CEO Trent Talbot, CEO of Brave Books], a younger girl got here to the microphone to explain how studying a Scholastic e-book with a single kiss when she was eleven led to a pornography dependancy that took her years to shake. “I don’t want Conroe ISD students to repeat what I went through because they accidentally ran upon a Scholastic book or another book that could lead them down this road,” she stated, “which Drama is one of them.”

That “young woman” was Lanah Burkhardt, who simply so occurs to be a Public Relations Coordinator for Brave Books. You can watch the testimony beneath and notice it was shared by SkyTree with none point out of it being a person with ties to their firm.

SkyTree Book Fairs doesn’t checklist the books it plans to make obtainable on the market at their occasions, however as Strong reported, a lot of them are Brave Books titles and a number of other of the books talked about throughout the Conroe ISD college board assembly have been by celebrities endorsed by Brave Books. The beneath picture is one captured from the SkyTree Book Fairs web site at launch with samples of the varieties of books they’d supply; the pictures appear to not be on their web site, and the catalogs are a large number of damaged hyperlinks and pictures.

Image from skytree books title offerings.

It’s curious they highlighted non-Brave Books titles. Did they get the licensing rights to promote them on the e-book truthful and/or do the authors and publishers of these books know they’re being distributed by this non-profit Scholastic different? Likewise, it’s value contemplating what occurs if SkyTree claims a e-book is “clean” and “appropriate” and certainly, their loyal followers disagree. At least with the books they’re related to, they will defend their choices extra simply.

Brave Books has been proud to share on social the brand new, thrilling e-book gala’s. Why would they cross promote until that they had a vested curiosity within the firm that sells their books and has their former staff and is based in the identical Texas group?

All of this in principle can be, at this level, little greater than a laughable try at disrupting a well-founded and developed trade. But SkyTree has already discovered success in getting their e-book gala’s into faculties. Their first cease is in Fredricksburn, Virginia, faculties in early December on the Spotsylvania School District. The e-book truthful firm has invited anybody from the general public to affix them on the occasion.

Get prepared for our first SkyTree truthful at a public college in Fredericksburg, Virginia!

Food vans ✅
Music ✅@KirkCameron ✅

This would be the good Christmastime occasion to get your vacation procuring accomplished and help SkyTree Book Fairs.

Save, share, ship💥 pic.twitter.com/L54KHE9jOS

— SkyTree Book Fairs (@SkyTreeFairs) November 10, 2023

If Spotsylvania sounds acquainted, you’re not imagining it. That’s the place in 2021, two college board members instructed burning books they disliked once they have been faraway from college libraries; it’s been a web site of nonstop board conferences stuffed with calls for to ban books and ban queer folks, interval. Kirk Twigg, one of many e-book burning advocates, misplaced his election in November of this yr, however the timing of the e-book truthful meant the change within the face of the board had little say within the occasion.

But it’s not simply Fredricksburg. Now, it’s additionally Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, contemplating SkyTree Book Fairs. It’s Moms For Liberty in Oklahoma placing out press releases loaded with disinformation about Scholastic Book Fairs with a purpose to sway their followers, in addition to those that’ve but to enter the fray, into ramming these right-wing Christian e-book gala’s into the faculties.

~~Brave Books~~ SkyTree considers themselves the David right here, combating in opposition to a Goliath they themselves have created, distributed, and profited from. With the event of their newest e-book truthful endeavor and wrapping it as a nonprofit, they’ve a purpose of shoving this unprofessional manufacturing into 1,000 faculties by 2025.

Again and time and again–whether or not it’s SkyTree or Brave Books placing on the e-book truthful–it’s the children, the educators, the librarians, the mother and father, and the communities that lose. They’re being fed a gentle stream of lies and falsehoods, whereas christofascism and extremism proceed to infiltrate establishments of democracy.

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