Christine Tridente Fahey
CEO and Owner
Christine is a passionate reader and lifelong language nerd. This love of language led to two degrees in Applied Linguistics, including a master’s from Boston University, and a career of more than 25 years in the educational publishing industry. She is Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Center for the Book; a Trustee for the Advanced Math and Science Academy; helps support book access and literacy equity as part of the Hygge House Book Nooks team; and serves as Liaison for Volunteer Resources for the Boston Book Festival. Not surprisingly, she spends her free time reading, writing, and stewarding her Little Free Library.
Jennifer Hodges
COO
Jen has fond childhood memories of gathering her dolls around a table, not to drink invisible tea, but to complete the math worksheets she authored. Jennifer studied Mathematics at the College of the Holy Cross, where she completed the Teacher Education Program (TEP). She has spent almost 25 years developing mathematics content for education. Jennifer strives to provide learners with the tools to go from “I can’t do math!” to “I can — and I did!”
Lance Deschenes
Senior Project Director
Lance has a background in early childhood education and cognitive psychology. For twenty-plus years he exercised his creativity and honed management skills as a pastry chef in Boston, Chicago, and New York. Back in the field of education, he wants to share his passion for literature and reading with young people and create learning materials that are good food for children’s brains.
Katherine Follett
Senior Project Director
Kate grew up in a small town in Vermont, where she cultivated loves for both reading and the outdoors. She studied English at Amherst College and received her MFA in Fiction at Emerson College. She has been writing and editing educational materials since 2002, applying her experience as an amateur naturalist to science and science-focused ELA materials. She spends her time off traveling to different landscapes around the world, which she uses as inspiration for her paintings. You can view her artwork at www.katefollettfineart.com.
Jessica Laroche
Project Director
Jessica discovered her passion for writing at the age of 9 when she wrote her first ghost story. After graduating from the University of New Hampshire with an English degree, she used that passion to homeschool her two children through to college, creating dynamic yearly curricula, planning adventurous field trips, and volunteering to help develop and support the rapidly-growing local homeschooling community. When her children graduated, Jessica turned her attention to a broader audience, writing and editing original passages and educational materials for a number of publishers to help children become better readers and writers. In her spare time, Jessica writes YA fiction, most recently a hair-raising tale that involves a haunted piano, a cursed ring, and a pirate’s revenge.
Margaret Leonard
Project Director
From the first day of kindergarten, Meg knew school was her “happy place.” Meg earned a degree in Elementary Education from Winona State University, with minors in math and music, in the hopes of impacting students the way her own teachers impacted her. Following graduation, Meg spent 10 years working as a classroom teacher. Eventually, Meg decided that the kids she most wanted to teach were her own, so she left the classroom to work as a freelancer in educational publishing. Meg loves applying her classroom experience to create materials that are useful for teachers and that are relevant and accessible to all learners.