Who We Are

Read With You is an innovative independent children's book publisher specializing in high-quality content for readers aged 0-12. We offer illustrated trade storybooks and innovative educational series that teach key skills in STEAM and language arts. Our dynamic team of linguists, illustrators, storytellers, and educators is passionate about creating diverse content to inspire children around the globe.

Our Story

Read With You was founded in 2010 by a small group of professionals from tech, education, and publishing backgrounds. Our mission was to provide educational tools and resources to underserved communities. Our company quickly made a name for itself through high-quality lessons, curriculum materials, and community outreach. In 2015, the Read With You team used our research and teaching experience to publish our first set of books, designed by linguists to meet English learners’ needs. Since then, Read With You’s publishing house has grown to include 2,000+ English titles ranging from the language arts to STEAM, with global rights to 22,000+ titles across multiple languages. Today, we continue to develop books and materials that make education and reading fun, easy, and accessible.

What We Do

In addition to publishing children’s books, Read With You provides educational services such as online lessons, curriculum materials, worksheets, and individualized learning plans. We are dedicated to supporting accessible, equitable education through our Buy One, Donate One program.  For every book purchased, we donate one to a child in need at one of our many global non-profit partner organizations. If you are a non-profit that would like to partner with us, please contact us at cpo@readwithyou.com.

Meet the Team

Lina Xiao

Publishing Director
Read With You Co-Founder

Lina is an award-winning author, publisher, and education advocate who has spent her career finding new ways for stories to cross borders. The author of fourteen bestselling books, she writes across children’s literature, novels, essays, and narrative nonfiction, while working to make quality books and learning more accessible to children around the world. 

Her path to publishing was anything but conventional. Lina began her career in technology, developing data and analytics systems, before moving into the world of books. At Amazon Kindle, she worked in book acquisition and digital transformation. In 2010, she co-founded the Read With You Research Center and went on to help build an international K–12 language education company. Today, she is based in Singapore and leads Read With You Asia.

Now pursuing a PhD in education, Lina continues to work at the intersection of literacy, publishing, technology, cultural exchange, and educational opportunity. At the heart of her work is a simple belief: where a child is born should not determine how far that child can dream, or which books, stories, and cultures that child has the opportunity to discover.

Dr. Maria Pritchett

STEAM Publishing Director

Maria grew up in the Middle East and the Midwest, so she loves all foods with tahini or eggplant and connecting across cultures. After extensive work in language education and obtaining her Ph.D. in applied and corpus linguistics, she welcomed the opportunity to oversee educational book development at Read With You. She is passionate about creating books that open up the beguiling worlds of science and art to young readers. As a linguist, editor, and publisher, she loves to brainstorm new books, wrangle languages, and fix commas. At home, her favorite pastimes are battling weeds in the garden, volunteering with a refugee resettlement program, playing with her son, and reading up on world news, groundbreaking science, and history.

Kasia Merrill

Director of Content Development


Kasia is a creative writer and editor based in Appalachian Maryland. She holds an MFA in creative writing and has over ten years of experience teaching English as a second language to students around the world. In addition, Kasia has worked on over 100 children’s books as a writer, editor, or publishing director, and is passionate about imaginative storytelling and the art of literature. In her free time, she enjoys writing, reading, traveling, and spending time in nature.

Amelia Mena

VP of Research and Development

Amelia is a linguist whose areas of specialization include first and second language acquisition, cross-generational language acquisition, linguistic ideology, and cultural support as factors in language acquisition, lexicalization, and bilingual education capitalizing on natural linguistic transfer. She has field experience in Asia, the United States, Central America, and South America working with several tribes and organizations to publish multilingual education tools, programs, and dictionaries. She has studied 11 languages and is passionate about supporting at-risk and minority communities working to strengthen grassroots language revitalization and education programs. When she isn’t working, you can find her in the library, volunteering in community bilingual groups, or spending as much time outdoors as the Texas sun permits.

Nicole Williams

Director of Education and Publishing

Nicole is an Atlanta native with a diverse professional background spanning education, publishing, legal services, and child and youth development. Her passion for literature continues to deepen through her work as a writer, editor, and educator. At home, she enjoys immersing herself in the longest books she can find, experimenting with gluten-free recipes, and planning travel adventures with her husband.


Steve Chen

Managing Director

Steve spent more than twenty years helping build the technology that connected the world. Now he is working on something he believes matters just as much: making sure children have books that can open that world to them.


A first-generation immigrant, Steve knows firsthand how education can change a life. Teachers and community volunteers opened doors that led him to electrical engineering, computer science, and a global career in technology and telecommunications. But working around the world revealed a striking divide: while technology connected people faster than ever, access to books, literacy, and quality education still depended heavily on where a child was born. After more than two decades in technology, including work on Amazon’s global expansion, Steve turned that insight into action, leaving the tech world to focus on children’s publishing, literacy, and educational access.

At Read With You, he works to get children excited about reading and expand access to quality books. That mission includes Read With You’s Buy One, Donate One commitment, through which book purchases help put additional books into the hands of children and communities.