Alfred Blooms by Carrie Kruck

Alfred Blooms 

by Carrie Kruck

Illustrated by Carmen Mok

Published March 25, 2025

Random House

Hardcover

Fiction

40 Pages

Review copy provided by publisher

Summary (from Goodreads)

When Alfred sees Lulu’s magical yard filled with flowers and friends, he’s sure that if he can cultivate a beautiful garden, friends will flock to join him. Alfred tries but nothing grows in his brown patch of dirt. Determined to make one last attempt, Alfred heads to the store to buy fresh flower seeds. As he hurries home, he sneezes—and the seeds fly everywhere! And this time they begin to grow wherever they land—in his pockets, in his hair, even in his ears! A very discouraged Alfred gets stuck in the mud. But the aroma of warm blueberry muffins coming from a nearby bakery reminds him of Lulu’s favorite treat and, tucking the flowers under his hat, he heads there. Alfred shares muffins with Lulu and finds out that he doesn’t need a garden; time spent together is the best way to make a friend.

This charming friendship story is sensitive and delightful with just a touch of whimsy.

This book takes a different spin on the typical "friendship" book. Alfred's flowery condition opens the door to a conversation with Lulu, whom he wants to befriend. He thinks he needs to bring her gifts and needs to have a nice garden, but he really just needs to be himself. 

The illustrations, created with gouache, colored pencil, and graphite pencil have a whimsical feel. The characters have different skin tones and appear to be from different cultural backgrounds. 

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Kirkus

Cracking the Cover

The Power of Quick and Frequent Practice: Joyful Small Moves with Big Impacts on Elementary Literacy by Tammy Mulligan

The Power of Quick and Frequent Practice 

by Tammy Mulligan

Published Dec. 2024

Routledge 

166 Pages

Paperback

Professional Book-Literacy Instruction

Description from Publisher

What can students really accomplish when they practice something for just a few minutes a day? Quite a lot, as Tammy Mulligan illustrates in The Power of Quick and Frequent Practice: Joyful Small Moves with Big Impacts on Elementary Literacy.
Come along as we follow classroom teacher Tammy Mulligan’s journey to plan and facilitate small but powerful moments of practice that help students grow as readers, writers, and community members. Chapter by chapter, Mulligan explores how to bring different categories of quick and frequent practice to life in the classroom including:

● Quick and Frequent Phonics Moves
● Quick and Frequent Fluency Moves
● Quick and Frequent Comprehension Moves
● Quick and Frequent Moves To Help Readers Lead
● Quick and Frequent Moves to Connect with Families

Written with the practical lens of a teacher, The Power of Quick and Frequent Practice outlines how to make these practice moves a part of daily and weekly instructional routines, utilize simple tools you already have in your classroom, and weave moments of student leadership throughout the practice times to help children celebrate their growth. Mulligan shares strategies, routines, and tips for planning, managing, and implementing the kind of engaging and meaningful literacy practice that learners need.

The Power of Quick and Frequent Practice illustrates that small moves can have a big impact on children's literacy learning!

My Thoughts

Tammy Mulligan is a seasoned educator with decades of experience as a literacy consultant and classroom teacher with a deep understanding of literacy development and the cycle of assessment-driven research-based instruction. In this book she demonstrates how she uses formal and informal assessment to identify specific needs, set goals, plan and deliver brief, but frequent interventions for striving readers and writers. She walks readers through one school year and how she used powerful, yet straightforward, approaches to help her students to develop literacy skills and to see themselves as capable learners. 

As educators, we all struggle with finding enough time to help all of our students. Tammy shows exactly how we can find and use small moments throughout our days to give students some brief instruction and practice. Then she provides the instructional approaches she uses and how she enlists and organizes the help of colleagues and volunteers to help. 

All educators will get ideas from this book whether you are a classroom teacher, special educator, or interventionalist. It is full of schedules, checklists, student work, and resource ideas, including specific texts, and websites. I found myself rereading the section about how she prepares students to have student-led discussions and thinking about how I could modify my discussion work in the library. The section focusing on reader's theater includes specific texts and websites that she uses to find engaging reader's theater resources for her students. I found myself thinking about how I could incorporate this powerful instructional strategy into my library work. 

One thing that sets Quick and Frequent Practice apart from other texts about intervention are the chapters about finding ways to Help Readers Lead and Connect with Families. Her whole-child approach allows students to learn about themselves, to see the results of their consistent work, and to help them feel confident in their abilities.