Richard Robinson

Maurice Richard Robinson Jr. (May 15, 1937 – June 5, 2021) was an American business executive and educator. From 1975 until his death in 2021, Robinson was the chief executive officer of Scholastic Corporation. Robinson was noted for bringing many book franchises to younger readers, such as Harry Potter and Captain Underpants.

Early life Robinson was born in 1937 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. he had three sisters and one brother. He was raised in Manhattan.

Robinson attended high school at Phillips Exeter Academy and earned his Bachelor of Arts in government at Harvard College in 1958. The following year, in 1959, he studied at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, in England.

After Cambridge, Robinson became a high school English teacher in Evanston, Illinois for two years. In the mid-1960s, he began working as a classroom magazine editor at Scholastic Corporation.

Business career In 1971, Robinson became a board member of Scholastic, the educational publishing company founded by his father in 1920. He became President of Scholastic in 1974 and CEO a year later. In 2016, Scholastic and Robinson saw controversy over the publication of a picture story titled A Birthday Cake for George Washington, which showed one of Washington's slaves, the chef Hercules, preparing a cake for him. They later divorced. Robinson was married to Helen V. Benham, who founded the Early Childhood Division at Scholastic, from 1986 until 2003. Robinson said that James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was an inspiration for his tenure as Scholastic CEO. The cause was said to be either a stroke or a heart attack.

Awards and honors Robinson received an honorary National Book Award. PEN America noted him for his contributions to free expression in literature and publishing. The 2021 film Clifford the Big Red Dog was dedicated to his memory.