Scholastic is a word defined by

Cambridge as relating to school and

education. Scholastic Corporation is a

public company that has been closely

involved with school and education for

over a century. Personally, I have

always associated them with the

Scholastic Bookf Fair. Easily one of my

fondest memories of elementary school.

They would take us out of the classroom

to browse through all of these cool

books that we could choose to buy. It

was an exciting experience. And believe

it or not, I can still remember the

smell of all those new books that hit me

when I walked into that area. And for

anyone watching this that has not

thought about that stuff for a while,

you might be pleased to learn that the

book fairs are still happening in a big

way. Around 100,000 of them in every US

state continue to sell books to millions

of children each year. Well, I'm

guessing that the company behind those

book fairs is bigger and more

significant than you may realize. For

example, back in 1923, they started the

Scholastic Art and Writing Awards that

is promoted as the longest running and

most prestigious recognition program for

creative teens. Each year, over 100,000

teenagers from the US and Canada submit

original works to be considered in 28

creative categories because winning that

award can mean big-time exposure and

scholarship opportunities. Previous

winners include Truman Capot in 1936,

Andy Warhol in 1945, Stephven King in

1965, Ken Burns in 1971, and Lena Dunham

in 1999, among many other notable names.

Scholastic is a global company with

operations in over a dozen countries and

products sold in almost every country

throughout the world. All of it combines

for well over a billion dollars in sales

each year. So, in this video, my goal is

to provide a fuller understanding of

this company by detailing their business

in three major categories. Starting out

with education, which accounts for about

19% of their revenue. I'll admit this is

kind of a broad category, but Scholastic

works with over 90% of schools in the

United States to provide all sorts of

resources, including books for the

libraries, instructional products and

programs, teaching resources, literacy

initiatives to a point where most

teachers likely utilize Scholastic in

one way or another. Please, for any

teachers watching this, I would be

curious to hear how Scholastic has

impacted you and your students. But the

main thing I want to talk about here is

the classroom magazines because that has

been the most consistent part of the

company over the years going all the way

back to the beginning. On October 22nd,

1920, Maurice Robinson put together a

four-page general interest magazine,

really more of a newsletter, in his

mother's sewing room. It was called

Western Pennsylvania Scholastic and

would be sold in high schools around the

Pittsburgh area for 5 cents each. It was

a slow start, but circulation quickly

grew to about 33,000 within the first 5

years. By the middle of the 1930s, the

company was turning a profit and

publishing a separate magazine for a

younger audience called Junior

Scholastic. Over the years, they

continued to add new publications with

different focuses until they became the

leading company to do it. Today they put

out more than 30 separate classroom

magazines that they say are read by over

11 million people in the United States

each month. Mostly students from preK to

sixth grade. So these magazines not only

established the company and served as

its main business for decades. They also

set the stage for the next category on

my list, distribution. Scholastic is

currently the largest distributor of

children's books. They had built a

relationship with school teachers around

the country and Maurice Robinson saw

this as an opportunity to start their

famous book clubs. The company called

Pocketbooks had recently played a big

part in making paperbacks popular in the

United States. So, Scholastic teamed up

with them to start teenage book club

intended to be a way for teenagers to

conveniently purchase affordable books.

The whole idea behind Scholastic Book

Clubs is that the company distributes a

flyer or a catalog filled with books

that can be ordered typically at a

pretty reasonable price, as low as $1.

Teachers give the catalog to their

students. They bring it home to work

with their parents to select which books

they want. The student then returns it

to their teachers with their selections,

who place the orders and then give the

books to the students once they arrive.

Originally, it was a physical order form

that was torn out of those classroom

magazines. But in 2001, Scholastic

invested $22 million into website

improvements where they started offering

book club purchases online for the first

time. That, by the way, was shortly

after spending $400 million to acquire

one of the top competing book club

providers. So, Scholastic has been

aggressive in building up this unique

distribution system and is currently by

far the number one company in the

country to utilize it. In 1981, they

logically started supplementing their

book club sales with book fair sales.

Initially, they acquired California

school book fairs, but expanded

nationally with a bigger acquisition 2

years later. Meaning for over 40 years

now, Scholastic has been working with

school librarians or parent volunteers

to set up those mobile cases filled with

books where students could make their

selections. When surveyed, 93% of

students between 6 and 17 years old said

that they were more likely to finish

books that they personally select. And I

think that freedom of selection is part

of the genius behind this distribution

system. Schools receive rewards from the

book clubs and a portion of the sales

from the book fairs. So overall, I would

say it has been a beneficial system that

is typically praised by all the parties

involved. Going back to my list, the

third and final part of their business

that I want to talk about is publishing.

Arguably the most significant part of

their business, Scholastic has been

publishing books since 1926. And today,

exactly 100 years later, they're

responsible for publishing more than 600

titles each year. Really, what I want to

do here is start up a second list that

briefly highlights some of the more

notable franchises that Scholastic has

been responsible for. Now, I want to

make it clear that the author of a book

should receive a lot of credit for

creating a successful franchise. Well,

for obvious reasons, right? I don't

think I have to explain that one. But

keep in mind that the publisher is the

one responsible for discovering it,

printing it, promoting it, and

everything else that allows the public

to actually find and read the story. In

1963, Scholastic published the first

book in the series, Clifford the Big Red

Dog, created by Norman Bridwell. In

fact, Clifford has effectively become

Scholastic's mascot, being the same

shade of red that the company uses in

its logo. There are more than 130

million Clifford books in print, not to

mention two different television series

and a live-action movie released in 2021

that was dedicated to Richard Robinson,

longtime CEO of Scholastic, who passed

away earlier that year. Actually, maybe

one of the most impressive things about

Scholastic is the fact that the company

existed for over a century with only two

different leaders. I know that almost

sounds like it can't be true, but the

founder, Maurice Robinson, was CEO of

Scholastic for the first 55 years until

his son Richard took over in 1975.

Richard Robinson was a Harvard graduate

and former high school teacher before

joining the company. And he held that

position until he died 46 years later. I

mean, this has to be the most consistent

leadership, at least for any company

that I have covered on this channel. And

please let me know if you are aware of a

more impressive example. Every other

franchise on my list originated under

Richard Robinson's leadership with 1986

being the year that they really started

building up the catalog. That year

marked the debut of The Babysitters Club

written by Anne M. Martin and The Magic

School Bus, one of my personal

favorites, written by Joanna Cole. See,

that is quite the year considering both

series went on to become children's

classics, selling millions of books and

leading to popular TV shows and movies.

1992 was another big year because they

published the first installment of the I

Spy series where you have to solve the

riddles and find the hidden objects and

maybe more notably the Goosebumps series

written by RL Stein. I don't think I

have to tell you that is yet another

children's classic that has led to

multiple movies and television shows. I

guess in the mid 1990s they were selling

4 million copies per month with over 400

million English language books currently

in print. There were some legal disputes

involving the series, but Scholastic

purchased the full rights to it in 2003.

In 1996, four years later, Scholastic

published the first of many anomorphs

books, which I will admit, I don't think

I've ever read any of them, nor do I

remember watching the Nickelodeon

series, but I have spent a fair amount

of time sitting in a beanag chair in my

classroom's reading area just staring at

the covers. The following year, they

published the first Captain Underpants

book written by Dave Pilky, who later

went on to author the Dogman series,

also published by Scholastic.

Personally, as someone who was a kid in

the 1990s, this right here is like an

all-star lineup so far. That was

followed by the most successful book

series ever, Harry Potter, written by JK

Rowling. Scholastic won the US

publishing rights to the original book

for $15,000

and went on to publish the rest of the

series, typically breaking records with

each new release. Specifically, Harry

Potter and the Deathly Hollows sold 8.3

million copies in the US within the

first 24 hours. As you could imagine,

publishing Harry Potter helped bring

Scholastic up to that next level. They

actually reinvested a lot of the profits

to expand their book clubs, including

that $400 million acquisition that I

mentioned earlier. In 2008, Scholastic

started publishing the Hunger Game

series written by Susan Collins that

collectively went on to sell over 100

million copies. And then finally, in

2016, they started publishing the Bad

Guys series written by Aaron Blayby. I

didn't want to keep saying it over and

over because everything on this list

except I Spy has been adapted into

multiple movies or television shows,

most of which have been extremely

successful. I don't think it is too much

of a stretch to say that Scholastic is

at least partially responsible for the

popularity of everything on this list.

And I also want to point out that in

2024, Scholastic paid over $180 million

to acquire Ninestory Media Group that

included the animation studio Brown Bag

Films that is behind popular children's

television shows like Daniel Tiger's

Neighborhood and Doc McStuffins. I know

it just keeps going. There is so much

more that could be explored here.

Scholastic has been behind so much stuff

when it comes to young readers and

education. So, I recommend you look

further into it if you want to build a

fuller picture. For this video, my

intention was simply to help you

understand the size and the growth of

the company by highlighting some of the

bigger, more impactful parts of it along

with the parts that I felt would be more

recognizable and relatable to my

audience. And I have to say that the

cover to their 10K annual report might

just be the coolest one that I have ever

seen. Let me know in the comments what

are your thoughts about Scholastic. Is

it bigger than you realized? And if so,

what parts were you most surprised to

learn about? Like many of you watching,

I'm sure Scholastic was a meaningful

part of my childhood. So, this was a

great opportunity for me to talk about

all this stuff and maybe help put it

into context as far as the company

behind it and how it evolved. I'm

curious to hear about your favorite

Scholastic series. And feel free to

share any memories that you might have

about those book fairs. And any other

thoughts you have about Scholastic,

leave them in the comments. I'd like to

hear what you have to say. Thank you for

watching.