Pencils, books, but no more dirty looks

— -- Jim Norman of Buford, Ga., called back-to-school shopping with his five kids horrible last year. "People were fighting over the last notebooks and pens," he says. "I took the last glue stick from a bin, and someone snatched it from my hand."

Norman and his wife, Paula, were so frustrated with back-to-school shopping that this year they started the School Supplies Network, a company which bundles kits of school supplies. "We were just tired of the hassle and knew there had to be a better solution," Jim Norman says.

Many parents are experiencing the headaches of preparing the nation's 55.8 million kids to return to the classroom. As school supply lists get longer and more specific, many are using alternatives — some from retailers, others prompted by schools and parent organizations — to the long searches for notebooks and colored pencils.

The back-to-school season is the second-most-important selling period for retailers, behind the November-December holiday season. Families say they expect to spend an average $563.49 on back-to-school shopping this year, with total spending reaching about $18 billion, according to a survey conducted by BIGresearch for the National Retail Federation.

Retailers are trying to make back-to-school shopping easier. Some, including Kmart and Office Depot, display local school supply lists in their stores. Staples subsidiary SchoolKidz.com, working with parent-teacher organizations, bundles supplies and delivers them to children's desks the first day of school. Earlier this month, Crayola brought teachers to Wal-Mart stores to help parents buy school supplies. Some parent-teacher organizations sell packages of school supplies which parents can pick up before the year starts.

Angela and Steve Swicegood of Charlotte, have bought kits from their son's school ever since they experienced a harrowing search for a fat pencil used to teach kids how to write. "Even when we did find them, they had these evil-looking cartoons on them," Steve Swicegood said. "It's worth it to purchase the kits."