About Myrna

TOY INVENTOR, ENTREPRENEUR, ARTIST, TEACHER, MOM, “GRANDNEIGHBOR”

Toy inventor and entrepreneur Myrna Hoffman founded OOZ & OZ in 1989, producing a celebrated line of educational art and science toys – Morph-O-Scopes. Her mission is to engage, surprise, delight, teach and provide “just enough” challenge to children to excite them and stimulate their brains.

Morph-O-Scopes have won dozens of coveted national toy awards and universal critical acclaim.

In 2001, Oprah Winfrey’s Oxygen Media TV named Myrna Hoffman a top winner of its “Build Your Own Business” Contest.  In May 2004, Myrna earned the federal Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneurial Success Award for the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan region.

A born artist, Myrna Hoffman earned the first of her many creative honors at the age of 9 when her submission, in her hometown of Union, N.J., won the city-wide March of Dimes poster contest.

She has worked as a graphic artist, educational film animator, text book illustrator, art teacher, archeological artist. But eventually, it was Myrna’s life-long fondness for ingenious antique toys that drew her to solve the mysterious ancient optical secret of “anamorphosis,” the art of illusion that uses curved mirrors to magically re-form specially morphed drawings into normal reflections.

When she tested out anamorphoscopes as an activity for her daughter’s seventh birthday party, parents, wowed by their dazzled children’s “oohs and ahhs,” encouraged Myrna to go into business.

Now, Myrna invites you— her playmates, friends, fans, and supporters— to join the party and contribute your own discoveries to her blog. Send entertaining and educational videos, images, cartoons and writings about optical illusions and other unique left and right brain fun. Join her, too, in a commitment to growing children’s minds, spirits and imaginations— and to paying it forward to the next generation.