The publisher who created a kids’ book giant

Richard Robinson 1937–2021

It’s hard to overstate the influence of Richard Robinson on the nation’s youngest readers. During his 46 years as the CEO of Scholastic, he turned what had started out as a publisher of classroom magazines and organizer of book fairs into a $1.4 billion titan of children’s literature. Under Robinson, Scholastic published such blockbuster series as Harry Potter, Goosebumps, Clifford the Big Red Dog, and The Hunger Games, and the company now estimates that it distributes 1 in every 3 American children’s books. But Robinson cared about much more than market share. He called reading “a civil right” and joyfully battled censors who argued that Potter, Captain Underpants, and other Scholastic books were inappropriate for youngsters. Robinson noted last year that eight of the 10 titles on the American Library Association’s Most Challenged Books List of 2020 were there because of LGBTQ content. “And we are proud that two of them were published by Scholastic.” He was born in Pittsburgh to a homemaker mother and a father who founded Scholastic in 1920 as “a magazine covering high school sports and other activities in Western Pennsylvania,” said

The Wall Street Journal. At the start of his career, Robinson made clear he would not join the family business. But after graduating with a degree in government from Harvard and a few years spent teaching English and trying to write a novel, he “decided to give the family firm a try.” He joined Scholastic as an associate magazine editor in 1962 and was named CEO in 1975. Robinson “vastly transformed the company,” said the Associated Press, expanding into educational computing and TV with PBS adaptations of Clifford and The Magic School Bus. But books were the company’s primary focus, said The New York Times, and “Scholastic shattered sales records by venturing into uncharted territory.” The publisher snapped up the U.S. rights to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by a then unknown J.K. Rowling in 1997; Scholastic has since sold more than 180 million copies in the Potter series. Those magical tales, he said, “brought kids to the reading process who had never been readers.” That, he argued, was ultimately a civic good. Getting children to read more and expand their worldview, he said in 2019, aids “the larger goal of helping kids know how to build and maintain a fragile democracy.”