Richard Robinson, who as the longtime head of Scholastic Inc. shaped the reading habits of millions of young readers through such bestsellers as J.K....
NEW YORK — Richard Robinson, who as the longtime head of Scholastic Inc. shaped the reading habits of millions of young readers through such bestsellers as J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” novels and through a wide range of educational materials, reading clubs and book fairs, has died. He was 84.
Scholastic SCHL, +2.54% is the world’s largest publisher of children’s books and has long said it distributes 1 out of every 3 children’s book in the U.S. The publicly traded company’s estimated net worth is around $1.2 billion, down from over $1.6 billion in 2016 but well above a low of under $800 million during last year’s pandemic.
Robinson, a Pittsburgh native and graduate of Harvard College, was the son of Maurice R. Robinson, who founded Scholastic as a classroom magazine in 1920. The younger Robinson worked as a teacher and bricklayer, among other jobs, before joining Scholastic in the mid-1960s. He was named president of in 1974, CEO in 1975 and board chair in 1982.
Robinson also presided over historic changes in the business and culture, whether the rise of digital media or the increased emphasis on diversity and scrutiny of the past. In 2016, Scholastic pulled “A Birthday Cake for George Washington,” a picture story about one of Washington’s slaves, after widespread allegations that the book presented a benign portrait of enslavement.
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