The Roving Bookshop creates a real bookshop in your school with around 3000 fiction titles – laid side by side that’s enough to cover the whole floor of a school hall

Fiction is split into categories by age appeal and sequenced within each category by author

• board books, pictures books for younger children, universal appeal pictures books, challenging pictures books and graphic novels for older children
• beginner novels for children ready for simpler chapter books, short novels for children gaining confidence, longer novels for confident readers, challenging novels for books covering topics more appropriate for older readers, and the ‘Classics’

Non-Fiction, a further 2000 titles, is split into categories by subject and topic except for History which is sequenced by time period

• art, craft, cross curricular, English, geography, history, maths, personal and social, all aspects of science, and sport.

Poetry, I-Spy and Puzzle, Educational Posters are independent categories

We always bring the core fiction books. But we send schools a menu so they can choose any extra categories of non-fiction that they are interested in buying.

By arrangement, we can supply all the categories for the school to make purchases for classroom or library.

We have also undertaken many supply events of both 3000 and 5000+ titles where children have been involved in selecting books for classrooms and libraries – their participation giving them ‘ownership’ of the books. Feedback has been very positive and we have held a number of repeat events.

In advance of our visit we send a leaflet for each child with a free prize draw ticket (the winner getting £7.50 to choose a book from the Roving Bookshop), and ‘bookshop wallets’. These are envelopes that parents can use to send in cash or cheques for children to make purchases, and to receive any change.

We also send posters advertising the event, and a schedule for organising the class visits.

Yes. As the standard Bookshop is so big, sometimes there are as many reduced price books in a Roving Bookshop as other pop-up bookshops have in total.

While most of our books are sold at publishers’ prices, when possible we source quality books at lower cost, and there are a significant number of picture books and novels around half price in the Bookshop.

This allows children and parents from economically challenged backgrounds to buy good books at reduced cost.

No. The Bookshop is fully manned from set-up to take down.

Our staff can advise on book purchases, take payments and provide change.

We provide ‘bookshop wallets’ for each child. These are envelopes that parents can use to send in cash or cheques for children to make purchases, and to receive any change.

Yes. The Bookshop is open before school starts and remains open at the end of the school day for parents to browse with their children.

The bookshop is usually open for a single day, generating such excitement that sales in a day usually exceed those made over a week long bookfair.

We aim to be open by 8.30am for parents and children, then to receive class visits through the day. We remain open after school until all purchasing is completed.

We usually arrive at 7.30 a.m. to allow an hour to set-up

For small schools, half a day can work very well, usually the afternoon, the Bookshop arriving late morning, and setting up to open through the afternoon and after school.

It is important that every child can experience the Bookshop regardless of their ability to buy the books, as this encourages the relationship with books and reading.

Each class is allocated a time slot to fit with the school timetable – the number of children in the Bookshop and the time each group are allowed to browse/buy can be agreed with the school beforehand.

We usually set up the Bookshop in a hall. If the hall has to be used for dinners we can set up many of the displays around the walls and take down any freestanding displays over lunchtime.

Yes. Please let us know beforehand. If the hall has to be used for dinners we can set up many of the displays around the walls and take down any freestanding displays over lunchtime.

Yes. We give commission in books as a percentage of the total sales. The percentage earned is on a sliding scale – so the more the pupils and school spend the higher the commission.

No. You may choose to use your commission on any children’s books (excluding reading schemes) in print in the UK or USA.