Our Directors

Sally Mallam, Founder and Executive Director, has been director of our parent nonprofit, the Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge (ISHK), since 1991, initiating and overseeing ISHK’s publishing imprints, Malor Books and Hoopoe Books, and Share Literacy in 2002.

Our Teacher’s Guides were developed by Denise Nessel, Ph.D. Dr. Nessel is Director of Early Education for ISHK and senior editor of the Hoopoe Books curriculum. She is an associate of the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education, where she focuses on teaching reading and writing as thinking processes in grades K-12.

Dr. Nessel has written several books and classroom resources for teachers and a number of articles that have appeared in professional journals. Her most recent publications include the co-authored Thinking Strategies for Student Achievement (Corwin, 2007) and the co-authored Using the Language Experience Approach with English Language Learners (Corwin, 2008). She is currently collaborating on a theory-into-practice book on comprehension.

Education: Dr. Nessel received her B.A. degree in English from Illinois State University, her M.Ed. degree in Reading from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction (Reading) from the University of Delaware.

Hafeez Diwan was born in Karachi, Pakistan. He has translated Hoopoe books into Urdu and has recently written a delightful chapter book for 10+ year olds: Victor Moody the Mosquito-Boy and Faploom-Japloom, described by Kirkus Reviews as “Joyful…magical spell-casting and genetic code breaking with…elements of technology like…high voltage fields and massive glass classrooms…a young boy fighting a super genius…sure to entertain.” He is a skin pathologist in Houston, TX. He is a co-author of a textbook of skin pathology, Dermatopathology: A volume in the high-yield pathology series, and the author of How to Have Instant Will Power Right Away.

Our Directors

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