Scholastic’s net income rose 25% to $71.6 million in Q2 ended Nov. 30, due partly to a YouTube video that jumped-started sales of the previously out-of-print “The Wonky Donkey” children’s book, resulting in a publishing run of 1.2 million copies, Scholastic CEO Richard Robinson said.

The popularity of the four-minute video of Scottish grandmother Janice Clark reading the book to her four-month-old grandson Archer, spurred Scholastic to restart production in September with 600,000 copies, an amount that was later doubled, Scholastic executives said. The book previously had sold about 75,000 copies since its release in Australia and New Zealand in 2009. With new demand, Scholastic is developing a new “Wonky Donkey” board book, VP Kenneth Geist told us.

Scholastic’s total revenue rose 1% to $604.7 million, but its trade business, which includes “The Wonky Donkey” as well as author Dav Pilkey’s “Dog Man” book series, posted a 16% gain to $95.9 million. Pilkey’s sixth book (the series debuted in August 2016), “Dog Man: Brawl of the Wild”, is launching sales on Monday, with a production run of five million copies, up from three million when the last title, “Dog Man: Lord of the Flies,” was released last August. In addition to Wonky Donkey and Dog Man, Scholastic had strong sales during the quarter of licensed titles such as a “The Hunger Games Trilogy” boxed set that marked the 10th anniversary of the release of the first book in the series; “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes off Grindelwald”; and new 20th anniversary editions of the “Harry Potter” books.

Overall, Scholastic’s children’s book publishing and distribution revenue (trade, book fairs, book clubs) increased 1% to $417.9 million.

Contacts:

Scholastic Corp. Kenneth Cleary, CFO, 212-343-6100, kcleary@scholastic.com

Scholastic Corp., Kenneth Geist, VP Publisher Scholastic Press Picture Books, 212-343-6941, kgeist@scholastic.com