Adult Book Fair Dinner Party
The Idea —
My daughters headed into kindergarten this year and I wanted to host a party that reflected the start of the school year. When I thought about things I loved in elementary school, the first thing that came to mind was the book fair! The excitement of little prizes, the smell of new books, the $5 your parents gave you to shop all by yourself! I wanted to capture all of these little details and make an adult version.
One of the ways I made this theme more mature was through book presentations. I asked each friend to pick one book they think everyone MUST read and do a presentation on it. There’s nothing quite like a good book recommendation, is there? Well, I’ll do you one better: finding your new favorite read and getting a themed dish around it. From kids books, to smut reads, to must-read bestsellers, my friends and I had an absolute blast with this one!
Some of the highlighted pairings included:
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo + a martini, deviled eggs, and steak
Fourth Wing + blackened wings and fire-roasted ravioli
First Time Caller + pineapple pizza (a love/hate, I know)
Remarkably Bright Creatures + shrimp, mussels, and calamari
Harry Potter + chocolate frogs and ‘House’ veggies
Maybe Sunday + spicy taquitos
She Was Gone + lemon bars and pound cake
How We Prepped —
Now I could have spent a fortune on this, but luckily the dollar store exists. When it came to stocking my “store” I purchased some fun pens, calendars, note pads, and post its from the dollar tree. Then, in an effort to support some small, women-owned bookish stores, I got bookmarks, stickers, and cards from Allie Rose Co and Packed Party. I, also, made custom stickers with sticker paper and a logo I created in Canva, and placed them on little candles and matchbooks.
I wanted everyone to have “money” to spend (although it was actually a total free for all in the shop.) People could get coupons for having the best presentation, finding a coupon around the house, having the smuttiest recommendation, etc.
I set out a small bookshelf for everyone to place books they wanted to swap. We even had time to decorate our own canvas bags for placing all of our new goodies/books in. We just used sharpies, but honestly a book swap and bag decorating could be it’s own girls’ night. We packed a lot into our book fair!
Everyone made their own presentations for their books and we just used screen cast to put them on my tv. One friend made a case file for her murder mystery book! Another gave us a full breakdown of which library services are best for audiobooks and kindle. We even had the honor of picking our Harry Potter house. It was SO fun!
