Scholastic Canada history

To offset this trend, the company decided to invest more than $5 million to enter the highly competitive textbook market, building on the instructional materials it first offered in 1961.

In 1962 the World Affairs Multi-Text series was offered for use in social studies classes, and a series of arithmetic booklets were promoted for individual study at home.

In 1963, Norman Bridwell created what would become one of America’s oldest and most beloved children’s characters: Clifford the Big Red Dog®. There are currently more than 134 million Clifford books in print, which are published in 19 languages, and distributed worldwide.

In 1965 Scholastic introduced its hardcover book publishing division, the Four Winds Press.

By 1968, a series of short films, entitled Toute la Bande, had been designed for instruction in the French language.

1970 The FLQ, a terrorist group attempting to establish an independent Québec through revolution, kidnaps a British trade commissioner and a Québec cabinet minister.

In 1971 a School Division was created to oversee operations involving the company's book clubs and magazines.

Founded in 1977, Klutz creates book-based activity kits that stimulate creativity and critical thinking in kids of all ages.

Scholastic Productions was formed in 1978 to provide the company with the capability of producing children's television series, feature films, home videos, and multimedia products based on its popular book characters.

In 1981, Scholastic launched its in-school book fairs business with the purchase of a California book fair.

In 1982 the New Media division was launched to focus on educational software.

They proved so successful that Scholastic went national by acquiring Great American Book Fairs in 1983.

By May 1984, however, these new ventures had resulted in losses of $13.8 million, and the company's stock price plummeted.

The Magic School Bus series launched in 1986, with multiple television series and video games to follow.

In 1989, Scholastic Professional Publishing was developed to create high-quality resources for teachers.

Once the company was back on solid financial ground, it again went public, offering $90 million worth of stock in February 1992.

In September 1993 the company started Scholastic Network, an educational online computer service available on America Online (AOL).

In 1993--94 Scholastic was moving toward multimedia and interactive products as well as television programming. It spent $20 million to develop its first animated television series, The Magic School Bus, which debuted on PBS in fall 1994.

The Goosebumps series was launched on Fox television in the fall of 1995.

Net income declined to $31.9 million in fiscal 1996; it was affected by an after-tax charge of $14.9 million due to a change in accounting standards and other factors.

In January 1997 it acquired Red House Books Ltd., a British children's book distributor and book club operator, making Scholastic the largest children's book publisher and distributor in the United Kingdom.

Faced with a need to improve profitability, Scholastic rebounded in fiscal 1998.

The company showed continued revenue growth and profitability in early 1999.

In 2000 Scholastic acquired Grolier, one of the largest United States publishers of general encyclopedias.

In 2005, Scholastic's Graphix imprint launched with the color edition of BONE #1: Out from Boneville by Jeff Smith, creating a separate platform for Scholastic graphic novels.

In 2008, Scholastic published The Hunger Games, the first title in Suzanne Collins’ wildly popular dystopian trilogy.

Scholastic launched its corporate podcast Scholastic Reads in December 2015.

In 2016, Captain Underpants creator Dav Pilkey introduced readers to Dog Man, a part-canine, part-policeman superhero.

In September 2019, Raina Telgemeier’s third middle-grade graphic novel memoir, Guts, premiered as the #1 bestselling book in the country overall.