Learning is relational before it is academic.
Cook Learning & Story Press began long before it had a name. Growing up in Washington State, founder Tamara Cook tutored her mother in English from the third grade through high school. That experience shaped her deepest conviction about education. Learning is relational before it is academic. It happens in the quiet space between two people who trust each other.
For seventeen years, Tamara built a career in operations and program management, earning an MBA, a PMP certification, and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. Then the real spark came at home, watching her daughter Olivia explore their garden. Children do not need more information. They need a meaningful reason to engage. That reason, Tamara found, is a story.
That belief became our mission. We exist to cultivate early scientific thinking through story-driven exploration, so that a generation of children grows up meeting science with wonder, because their learning began with stories they loved. What started as one character-driven story series grew into free worksheets, and then into a full curriculum. The ecosystem grew because the work needed a home.
Through all of it, one promise holds. Meaningful learning, ready to go. No searching, no planning gaps, and rigor that never costs a child their wonder.
The people behind the press
Two founders, one belief that warmth and rigor are never a trade-off.
Tamara Cook
Tamara grew up in Washington State, where tutoring her mother in English from the third grade through high school taught her a lesson she never forgot. Learning begins with trust. She carried that conviction into a seventeen-year career in operations and program management, earning an MBA, a PMP certification, and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, and building the kind of quiet discipline that turns big ideas into systems that actually work.
Then the whole idea came to life at home, watching her daughter Olivia explore the garden. Tamara saw that children do not need more information. They need a reason to care, and a story is the surest way to give them one. She founded Cook Learning & Story Press to pair that belief with real classroom rigor, so that wonder and standards could finally live inside the same lesson, ready for any family or teacher to pick up and use.
Alexandra Landoe
Alexandra grew up on the eastern side of Washington, in the wide-open corner of the state that shaped her love of curiosity and place. For as long as she can remember, she has been drawn to teaching children, and today she lives that passion most fully at home, raising three children of her own. She holds a Master of Education in Early Childhood Education from Eastern Washington University.
Alexandra is also a U.S. Army veteran with nearly a decade in operations, logistics, and program leadership. She has coordinated teams of hundreds and built the systems that keep them running. At Cook Learning & Story Press, she brings those two sides together, pairing deep early-childhood expertise with an operator's discipline. She is, in the truest sense, warm in the classroom and precise in the planning book.
"Real learning happens in the space between two people who trust each other."
