Workman Kids – About
About
Workman Kids publishes books that bring the world of possibilities to young readers through innovative, educational, and inspiring books that entertain, enrich, and inform! Featuring beloved and bestselling brands such as Brain Quest®, Paint by Sticker® Kids, and Indestructibles®,Workman Kids is committed to growing a new generation of inquisitive minds and lifelong readers.
Meet
Stacy Lellos
Stacy Lellos is SVP and Publisher of Workman Kids. As Publisher, Stacy oversees the publication of editorial, design, marketing, and publicity of books for children and young adults, including novelty, picture books, middle grade reader, and young adult fiction and nonfiction. Workman Kids is home to many bestselling brands, including Brain Quest, Big Fat Notebooks, Paint by Sticker Kids,and Indestructibles, as well as a myriad of innovative books for curious kids.
Stacy is a thirty-plus–year veteran of book publishing and children’s retail, having previously served as President of KLUTZ, and before that, Vice President of Brand Marketing for Toys“R”Us. Stacy built her career in book publishing at Scholastic, where she held multiple roles culminating in Vice President, Marketing & Multi-Platform Publishing. Stacy has been recognized during her career as a Women in Toys: Two-time Wonder Women Finalist, a Multiple Finalist for “Toy of the Year,” Toy Association, as well as a Multiple Finalist for “Best Toy of the Year,” ASTRA (American Specialty Toy Retailing Association).
She’s thrilled to lead Workman Kids’s rich tradition of joyously bringing books to children.
Jules Kelly
Jules Kelly is Associate Publisher, Head of Marketing & PR for Workman Kids. In that capacity, she oversees the ideation and execution of consumer promotion and media outreach with her fabulous team.
Jules has been championing children’s books for the last 13+ years and was thrilled to join the Workman Kids group in 2024. As the former marketing lead for Young Readers at Random House Children’s Books, she managed the year-over-year growth of 25+ in-house New York Times bestselling brands, including Grumpy Monkey, Impossible Creatures, Emily Winfield Martin, Dave Eggers, Yuval Harari, R. J. Palacio, Christopher Paolini, Philip Pullman, former president Barack Obama, and many more.
Having grown up as an obsessive Brain Quest kid, this is a dream role, and she is so excited to continue sharing the love of reading & learning with the next generation!
Cheryl Klein
Cheryl Klein is the Editorial Director of the trade list at Workman Kids, where she works with authors like Meredith Walker, Katie Kennedy, and Jemele Hill. She previously spent two years as the Editorial Director of the Algonquin Young Readers list, where she originated and launched the Kids in Mrs. Z’s Class series; five years at Lee & Low Books, where she published When Aidan Became a Brother, winner of the Stonewall Book Award, as well as many other picture books, novels, and nonfiction projects; and sixteen years at Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic, where she acquired or edited titles by Kelly Yang, Kate Beaton, Daniel José Older, Bill Konigsberg, Varian Johnson, Katherine Paterson, David Small, and Lisa Yee, and Dan Santat, among others.
Cheryl is the author of the adult nonfiction guide The Magic Words: Writing Great Books for Children and Young Adults and five picture books.
Karen Edwards
Karen Edwards, Editorial Director, happily resides at the intersection of educational publishing and nonfiction children’s trade publishing. She began her career in educational publishing and has worked for many of the textbook publishing notables, including W. H. Sadlier, McGraw Hill, Pearson, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Kaplan Learning.
Karen joined Workman Kids in 2018 to manage and expand their cornerstone brands Brain Quest and Big Fat Notebook and to develop new publishing with a mission to help students meet classroom objectives while generating a love and excitement for learning.
With that mission in mind, she built the Educational Resources team—a group of fantastic, creative editors—in service of that goal. The team has developed multiple engaging educational formats that put the fun back in learning fundamentals. In addition to expanding the brands into new age groups and with new formats, they’ve developed Learn by Sticker(an educational offshoot of the wildly successful Paint by Sticker Kids series), The Solvers (a math graphic novel series), Mega Math Maze, and other titles that generate curiosity and encourage problem solving and critical thinking.
Outside of the children’s editing world, Karen spends her time reading (sci-fi, thrillers, memoirs), gardening, and traveling to as many food festivals as she can.
Megan Nicolay
Megan Nicolay has been with Workman for over twenty years, bringing imagination, innovation, and reinventing the idea of what is a “book”—whether it is a board book that transforms into a tea set or a story that can be read forward and backward.
Overseeing the Novelty, Activity, & Gift group, Megan shepherds the core novelty brands such as Paint by Sticker, Indestructibles,and creative new brands for young readers.
When she is not editing, Megan can be found on the softball field or training for a new marathon. She is a founding member of the Department of Craft, a New York City–based craft collective, and lives in Brooklyn, New York, where you may find her at an NYC Liberty game!
Alisha Zucker
Alisha Zucker, Executive Editor, started her career as a third-grade teacher in NYC public schools, where she learned to love children’s books and the kids who read them. She parlayed that experience and a Master of Science in Teaching into a thirteen-year career in educational publishing, mostly at Scholastic.
Alisha joined Workman in 2021 and created the Learn to Write and Learn by Sticker series, as well as edited almost every Brain Quest workbook in existence. Beyond workbooks, she developed the My First Seek & Learn bilingual Spanish series and the Actual Factual Files, a high-interest non-fiction series written with her former third graders in mind. Alisha loves thinking about how kids learn and how the adults in their lives can facilitate that. Creating content for kids is an absolute privilege, and she is so grateful that it is her job to do so!
Deanna Cook
Deanna F. Cook, Executive Editor at Workman Kids, is part of the Novelty, Activity, and Gift group. She is the former Executive Editor of children’s books at Storey Publishing where she developed several series like Backpack Explorer and Tattoos That Teach. Prior to that, she served for nineteen years as the Creative Development Director at Disney’s FamilyFun magazine, leading brand extensions including a successful ten-book series with Hyperion Books for Children, craft kits at Walmart, and a television special with Food Network. Earlier in her career, she was a classroom magazine editor at Scholastic and Children’s Television Workshop’s Sesame Street magazine.
She’s the award-winning author of cookbooks for kids, including Cupcake Class (2025), Baking Class (2018), and Cooking Class (2015). She lives in western Massachusetts and can be found online at deannafcook.com.
Karen Halpenny
Karen Halpenny’s career path was set in stone during her college internship at Scholastic, when she fell in love with being surrounded by books and fellow book nerds all day—it had to be heaven!
After graduation, Karen moved into the educational publishing world, first at Pearson Learning Group and then editing first-grade textbooks for the nationally adopted Treasures program at McGraw Hill. Moving to Sesame Street took Karen into the world of licensed publishing where she spent the next fifteen years editing all types of books about Elmo, Big Bird, Grover, and their furry friends, including classic storybooks, coloring books, concept board books, a library series, educational workbooks, and just so many potty books.
Karen joined the Workman Kid’s Educational Resources team in 2022 as a Senior Editor, and is excited to continue creating compelling content for children, both by expanding the Brain Quest brand as well as seeking out fresh new formats and titles. When she is not at HBG or reading, she’s watching Jeopardy! or costume dramas, reading detective novels, seeing live music, or traveling.
Karen Smith
Karen Smith, Editor, has always been happiest surrounded by more books than she could possibly read. From a young age, she would forgo playdates to sit and immerse herself in the latest Babysitter’s Club offering. Now, getting to edit picture books, middle grade, and young adult fiction comes second only to sharing those books with her own children.
Karen began her career at Penguin Random House, working on New York Times-bestselling picture books like How to Babysit a Grandma by Jean Reagan, as well as award-winning middle grade and young adult books like the National Book Award Longlisted What the Night Sings by Vesper Stamper.
After ten years, Karen joined the Workman Kids team as an editor, where she acquires commercial trade titles from board books through upper YA. She has a special love for younger readers and board or picture books about art, music, or food, as well as books for any age that are steeped in family and community. On rare occasions when she is not reading, you can find her cooking or watching binge-worthy TV. Karen lives on Long Island with her husband and three children.
Gracie Elliott
Gracie is an Editor on the Workman Kids Educational Resources team, where she edits a variety of curriculum-aligned nonfiction books for students of all ages.
Her publishing career began in 2018, when she joined Workman Publishing’s children’s editorial team as an Editorial Assistant. She soon assumed editorial responsibilities for many of Workman’s bestselling brands—including Paint by Sticker, Paint by Sticker Kids, and Indestructibles. Her list also included numerous trade series and stand-alone titles, including the Welcome to Music series.
In 2021, Gracie moved over to the Workman Kids Educational Resources team as an editor. She is the lead editor of the bestselling Big Fat Notebook series—recently adding Algebra 2 to the lineup of high school titles. She has also edited numerous titles in Workman’s iconic educational brand Brain Quest—including, the 30th Anniversary editions of the Brain Quest Smart Cards, the My First Brain Quest board book series, and the forthcoming Brain Quest Sticker Activity Books.
Her favorite project has been The Solvers, a graphic novel series that teaches math through the hilarious antics of a trio of kid superheroes. She hopes everyone reading this will check them out and give a copy to their favorite fourth grader learning fractions.
Katie Campbell
After graduating college with a BA in English and Vocal Performance, Katie began her publishing career at the Columbia Publishing Course, then interned at Random House Kids and Workman before joining Workman Kids full time in 2020 and is currently an Assistant Editor.
Since then, she has edited the bestsellingbrands Brain Quest, Paint by Sticker Kids, and Indestructibles. Katie supports Karen Edwards and the Educational Resources team on a wide range of formats: workbooks, activity books, picture books, and more. Her personal list of projects includes the Learn by Sticker series, and she has assisted on projects like Brain Quest Write and Erase: Preschool Skills and Here I Am, I Am Me by Cara Bean. She is drawn to children’s nonfiction that sparks joy, meets readers where they are, and empowers kids to thrive in and out of the classroom. She is always looking to acquire books that pair learning with fun in an appealing, accessible package; titles that boost critical thinking and problem-solving skills, as well as highly visual nonfiction books or graphic novels. When Katie doesn’t have a book in her hands, she’s seeing musicals, going to conventions, or playing video games.
Katixa Espinoza
Katixa Espinoza is the Assistant Editor at Workman Kids’ Novelty, Activity, and Gift. After graduating with a BFA in Creative Writing from Pratt Institute, she became interested in publishing after interning at Nightboat Books and working as a bookseller for three years. Before joining the Workman team, they were immersed in the world of romance publishing at HarperCollins/Harlequin for three years where they worked with authors like Kelli Storm and Elle Douglas.
These days, Katixa supports Megan Nicolay and the Novelty, Activity, and Gift team, where she’s especially excited about children’s books that are interactive, inventive, and inclusive. She loves stories that break the mold and spotlight underrepresented voices. When she’s not editing or reading horror novels at home, she’s a musician, writer, and visual artist out of the office.
Contact
1290 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10104
Email: WorkmanKids@hbgusa.com