James Saunders: School Library Hero
Danny Neville
TingL: What was it like growing up in the book business?
James Saunders: As with all family businesses it was great, challenging, fun and interesting all wrapped up into one. I was always doing something business related. My Dad, Dave Saunders, had an office supply and furniture store when I was a teenager. I’ve worked in the family business since the age of 14, but truthfully I probably began even earlier. My Uncle, John Saunders, had Saunders Book Company at the time and he started giving me some books to sell in front of our store on Hurontario St. in Collingwood. I was hooked! I started in publishing even earlier. Around Grade 4 I was creating a hand drawn magazine of sorts for the kids in my class. I sold photocopies of it for 25 cents a copy. My art and my handwriting are atrocious, so it was so much better when we started to use desktop publishing programs to create an anniversary history book for Collingwood Collegiate Institute when I was in Grade 12. While my family and my co-workers are very artistic, I am not!
Today our company has 90 employees and is owned by me, my cousin Sean Pearson and Ian Kerr. Sean and I have grown up in the business since we were kids and Ian has been working with us for many years as well. We have Saunders Book Company, Beech Street Books and in the U.S. we own Red Brick Resources. Many of our employees have been with us for 20+ years!
You’re a big supporter of school libraries. Tell us about how you support and advocate for school libraries and school library professionals?
Our whole company is a big supporter of school libraries and professional staffing of school libraries. We believe that there should always be strong support at the school board level as well to help provide a structure and voice for school libraries.
Carol Koechlin, Anita Brooks Kirkland, Liz Kerr and I go way back. When I was a young sales rep my very first appointment was with Carol Koechlin and Sandi Zwaan. I guess you could say that is where my training in the school library work began. Carol would host evening events at the library resource centre in Scarborough. I would set up a book display, she would send me off with the food that was left, and I would learn about learning commons, inquiry based learning and critical thinking. This knowledge I like to think we try to incorporate into every Beech Street Books title today. From that point on I have always seen what we do and what you do as teacher-librarians as vital and we continue to try and support you in your role. After all, the ultimate goal is to provide the best education possible to students. Cheesy, I know, but true! The ideas for each book we publish and what we look to carry come from educators. We are always listening and adjusting to serve everyone the best way we can.
So, I would say as a company we advocate through our support of Treasure Mountain, OSLA, Canadian School Libraries and really anything we are asked to do! Anita has pulled me into a lot of different things, and she always knows that I will say yes. I have been pleased to be asked to speak on podcasts, write articles and appear before trustees in order to provide a little more insight into what educational publishers and distributors do. I hope that little contribution assists in the fight against censorship and other issues as they come up.
I am also the current President of the Ontario Book Publishers Organization and I sit on a number of committees with the Association of Canadian Publishers. With OBPO we host our Ontario Book Day each year at Queen’s Park where we meet with the Ministry of Education as well as with a number of other Ministers and Ministries. Our biggest request at the OBPO is to get the government to provide stable funding for schools so that they can support our great Canadian publishers and authors.
Saunders Book Company has a long history of providing resources to school libraries in Canada. Are there any stories or events that stick out for you over the years?
There are definitely some stories! Some of which I can’t tell of course, but most of which have to do with travel.
Not long after coming back to Collingwood after university, we bought a bookmobile from Kitchener Public Library. It was a full tractor trailer with furnace, electricity, everything! We took the bookmobile to a number of places doing book displays. These were the days before we started our large vendor fair book displays that Adam Cichon now runs. For one display, our driver was on his way to Sault Ste. Marie and I was about an hour behind him in my vehicle. He blew two tires and ended up in a snowbank on the side of Highway 11. We were lucky that we had a small trailer at the time and another truck that was driven by one of our long term sales reps, Glenn Crandlemire. Without even a thought, he backed that truck and trailer up to the bookmobile and loaded all of the books inside, in no time flat, in a snowbank, on the side of the highway. Glenn then got a taxi to a small hotel outside of Parry Sound and stayed through the night until the tire service came the next morning. Glenn saved us more than a few times!
I guess that’s what it’s all about though, the people. Whether it is connecting with everyone I have known for a while or meeting new people at book displays, meetings, dinners or conferences or having long term employees, the industry has always been like a family for all of us here at Saunders and Beech Street.
How can people connect with you?
They can call me anytime 800-461-9120 ext. 3050, e-mail jamess@saundersbook.ca or interact with me on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.
“I was introduced to James Saunders through the J. Appleseed catalogue that landed on my library desk in 2003. Wonderful selections awaited our parched library rooms, and the colourful and affordable titles made it an easy choice for us in the NNDSB. When the Ontario Government gave school libraries a ‘money bomb’, $61 million for new textbooks and library books, plus new funding for the student success program providing for additional librarians in high schools (Government of Ontario, 2005), Saunders reached out to us and provided transportation to and from the warehouse, allowing us to choose and fill our library shelves. A few years later, a flood in Nobel Public School completely destroyed all the new gains we had made, and once again, Saunders came to the rescue by beginning the donating drive to restock the school shelves so the students would not be without. James Saunders has always been very generous, kind and fair with all the NNDSB library team over the years and has been a HUGE supporter of school libraries, following in the tradition begun by ‘Saunders’ in the 1960’s.” ~Karen Upper, NNDSB
Meet the Author
Danny Neville is a primary educator, children’s author and former teacher-librarian.
