Meet the children's literature startup that wants to unseat Scholastic as the king of the book fair

"This is the Everglow Forest, one of the recent book fair themes produced by Literati, a startup that currently runs about 4,000 book fairs a year. At some schools, librarians and PTA volunteers build it out into something approaching an art installation, creating a hand-crafted world that children want to wander through for hours. For a seven-year-old, clutching a crumpled twenty-dollar bill, the message is that books are magical and worth celebrating."

"Ewing left a job at Google to launch Literati a decade ago. While hundreds of thousands of children's books are published every year, Ewing realized many parents struggled to find high-quality books tailored to their child's interests. Literati uses data to pair a child with the right books. It first applied this approach to subscription boxes, but three years ago, it expanded into book fairs, quickly becoming the biggest competitor to the Scholastic Book Fair."

"Last month, Literati was acquired for an undisclosed amount by Trustbridge, a private equity firm that owns many children's book publishers, including Candlewick and Holiday House. With this infusion of capital, Ewing wants to grow the book fairs by expanding from the Midwest and South, into the Northeast and the Pacific Northwest. "The book fair is an experience that 33 million kids get every year," says Ewing."

""It's such a cultural institution that no one had really taken an interest in changing it, so there hasn't been meaningful competition in decades." Ewing is betting that the kids-a"

A book fair theme called Everglow Forest turns a school library into a dusk-like forest with mossy canopies, glowing mushrooms, and twinkling lights. Literati produces thousands of such book fairs each year, and some schools build elaborate installations that children enjoy for hours. The goal is to reinforce that children’s books are valuable and magical. Literati was created to help families find high-quality books matched to a child’s interests using data-driven pairing. After starting with subscription boxes, it expanded into book fairs and became a major competitor. After acquisition by Trustbridge, Literati plans to grow into additional regions.

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