Sean Traynor, Assistant Editor

John Cassidy is the Chief Creative Officer and co-founder of Klutz in 1977. He has authored more than 200 Klutz titles, making him one of the most prolific and popular children’s book authors alive today. His initial book, Juggling for the Complete Klutz, has sold over 3 million copies. He also has won the Children’s Legacy Award from the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose for his contributions to the learning and lives of children. He introduced youth to his hands-on approach to teaching, sparking interest and mixing fun with learning. He is the creative innovator and head cheerleader of his team of about 55 employees.

Klutz, based in Palo Alto, California, has always been on the U.S. children’s book and toy best-seller lists for the past 32 years, with over 200 active titles in print and more than 90 million books sold worldwide. Mr. Cassidy created an innovative form of a “how-to” book which included instructions with the “tools of the trade.” He designed books for doing, not just reading. They continue to publish books across a variety of subjects, from crafts and games to educational. Klutz has earned awards from National Parenting, Parent’s Choice, Publisher’s Weekly, Oppenheim Portfolio Best Toy Awards, Dr. Toy, Family Fun, Mensa and many other noteworthy organizations.

AK: You created the million-copy bestseller, Juggling for the Complete Klutz. Can you do this? What other skills do you have that many people might not know about?
JC: My juggling skills are profoundly unimpressive. I can manage three balls, three clubs and on a good day, four balls. But when I perform, people will tell me that I remind them of a good juggler they have seen somewhere else, they can’t remember where. I do one trick where a coin disappears and another one where my head appears to come off, but actually does not. If I have any talent, it is the talent of not understanding stuff very well, or very quickly. I think I am able to write clear instructions because painfully clear step-by-step instructions are the only route I have ever been able to follow myself. As regards to any other skills, I am able to stick a finger though my head and many people do not know this about me.


AK: How did having children effect your perspective on your company?
JC: I don’t think I would be able to publish and write for kids if I didn’t have any myself. Kids are a separate breed and I believe it is necessary to marinate in them if you hope to have any understanding.


AK: What’s your favorite Klutz Book and why?
JC: Right now my favorite Klutz book is The Encyclopedia of Immaturity since it is so long and I was surprised to see how much flotsam was there in my brain. But before that I favored Drawing for the Artistically Undiscovered since I did it with the illustrator Quentin Blake and I think Quentin is a stone-cold genius.


AK: I understand you started your company in a garage with a Chevrolet Impala. Can you tell us this story?
JC: Klutz was begun in 1977 by me, Darrell Lorentzen and B.C.Rimbeaux. We’d known each other from college days. At the time, we were guiding river trips in California and Idaho and attempting to avoid any career-oriented activities. Teaching people how to juggle with a book and some bean bags seemed to qualify. We were hoping to make an enormous fortune in a few weeks, and then buy an island and settle down to a lifestyle of excess and indulgence. In this we failed. The book sold steadily, but unspectacularly and it was during these days that our office was a garage. Eventually, when I became parental, I was forced to look the “c” word (“career”) down the barrel and come to grips with it. We published a second book in 1983 and now have over 150 in print.


AK: Did you ever dream Klutz would become the worldwide sensation that it has become?
JC: No. I think if we’d believed there was long-term potential in our juggling book idea, we might have chosen a name slightly more dignified than “Klutz”.


AK: Why do you think Klutz books appeal to children? What qualities are in a successful book?
JC: Klutz books have been well received, I believe, because they are written by experts in the field of not understanding the topic. We write them, I should add, sitting alongside experts in the subject at hand, but the approach to teaching is chosen by the teaching expert (that would be us) not by the doing expert (that would be them).


AK: Your company has a fun atmosphere as shown in your motto: “Create wonderful books. Run the business like family. Remember some of what our Moms told us. And never grow up more than necessary.” How do you make sure you hire the right kind of people that foster that sense of humor we find in all the books?
JC: We don’t have a formula for attracting Klutzy people to our staff, although it certainly seems to be full of them. Maybe they’re drawn to the place the way buttered toast always falls butter side down. Some fundamental mischief in the space/time continuum. It happens too often to just call it luck. An alternative explanation: maybe normal people start here, and then, after a while, become warped by the energy of the place.


AK: How do you choose which ideas you are going to make into a book?
JC: We choose ideas based on some history (What have these kinds of books done for us in the past?), some understanding of our audience, and a lot of guesswork.


AK: Was it a difficult decision to sell your company first to the two different media companies (Nelvana Limited and Corus Entertainment Inc.) and then to Scholastic? Has it changed the company much?
JC: I sold Klutz to Nelvana 10 years ago, because my partners decided to cash out.


AK: What advice would you give other kids who want to write or start their own company?
JC: Frequently people come to me with one idea or another and I usually say that driven people who wake up every morning and dream about all the various ways they will push their idea a little further along that day are a little obsessive, but also a little more likely to make it work. I am, by the way, very humble about my ability to spot a successful trend. It is a humility that I come by very honestly. About two months after I started Klutz, a fellow sent me a manuscript which described a simple solution to a puzzle that was just coming on the market. I tossed the manuscript in the trash, figuring nobody would ever buy a puzzle that was so difficult you needed to buy a book to figure it out. The manuscript was called The Simple Solution to the Rubik’s Cube and it was published later that year by Bantam where I believe it still holds the single season sales record, 8 million copies in a few months.

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