Bobby Lynn Maslen

Bobby Lynn Hartness Maslen was born on December 10, 1930. Bobby had an early aptitude for art and graduated from The Rhode Island School of Design with a degree in Clothing Design in 1952 and started her career designing children’s clothing for the illustrious children’s company, Youngland, in New York City. Following her marriage Bobby stayed home to raise her growing family of four. This started her love of teaching, looking for a way to inspire a love of reading and she volunteered at all the schools her children attended.

Before becoming an author, she was a teacher, a career that took off in 1968 as a Beginning School teacher at Catlin Gabel School. There she paid careful attention to the specific needs of children learning to read for the very first time. Bobby’s work with 3 to 5 year-olds involved constant invention in art, math, physical growth activities and, of course, reading materials. When she didn’t find books that she felt were the right fit for her young students, she created Bob Books. The first books were handmade, inspired by two small dolls that she bought at a craft fair. She named the dolls Mat and Sam and spun stories about them, illustrated with line drawings that the children could copy and colour. John Maslen, her husband, a watercolor artist and former architect, drew the pictures and the couple’s growing children helped collate and staple.

Soon it became too cumbersome to make books for each student, so Maslen standardised the set and persuaded her school to print 300 copies. Bobby Maslen’s husband, Over night, the Maslens were inundated with phone calls. The potential was much more than we could handle so they turned to a major publisher of children’s books, Scholastic, Inc., for help. Today, all five sets of Bob Books written by Bobby Maslen are available to children all over the world, thanks to the partnership that was developed with Scholastic.

Bob Books have been featured in USA Today, CNN, Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Parenting Magazine, Huffington Post and Washington Post. They have been on Amazon’s Top 100 Children’s Books for over seven years, and received many accolades, including Editor’s Choice Award from Children’s Technology Review, Academic’s Choice Brain Toy Award, Parent’s Choice Approved, Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Best Book Award and more. There are over 10 million sets of Bob Books in print, which are sold all over the world, as well as Bob Books apps, reading kits, games, flashcards, workbooks and dolls.

Bobby’s life encompassed much more than Bob Books. She was a fine musician, playing piano, dulcimer and singing. She was an avid patron of Chamber Music Northwest and The Portland Opera. She was an excellent fabric artist and her work was honoured by Oregon Art in the Governor’s Office in 1987. She wrote extensively including other children’s books and multiple volumes of poetry. She died on August 16, 2018 at the age of 87, remembered for her simple stories simply illustrated, that have helped teach countless youngsters to read.