It fought the Bratz books, so now the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is taking on the toy extravaganza that makes up almost 30 percent of some Scholastic Book Club fliers handed out in elementary schools.

A story Sunday in the New York Times says the Boston-based group ”reviewed monthly fliers distributed by Scholastic last year and found that one-third of the items sold in these brochures were either not books or books packaged with other items.

“Based on a review of brochures in Scholastic’s Lucky Club for children in second and third grade, and its Arrow Club for fourth through sixth-graders, the group said that 14 percent of the items were not books, while an additional 19 percent were books sold with other trinkets like stickers, posters and toys.”

This is not a new problem - it’s been the case for at least a decade (that’s when my own daughter started first grade). When Scholastic holds in-school book sales the toys are some of the most popular items (at least in my memory. Some schools may not allow the sales).

Some of the colorful bookmarks, pens and erasers - even some of the posters - seem like OK items for a book sale or book-order form. Scholastic argues that these help draw kids to books.

But what about the kits for $10? Perhaps these toy sales are what allow the company to discount some of the paperback books? Those books are rather cheaply made, but when I was a child I loved ordering books through the school book clubs, even if the binding was of inferior quality. I doubt my mother would have paid for expensive hardcovers every month.

What do you think? Should Scholastic be hyping the big-ticket toys through schools?