About us

Earth Friendly Children is a family-owned company launched in 2023 by a doctoral-level child development, literacy and dyslexia specialist for over 25 years and mother of 3. Prior to starting Earth Friendly Children, Alyssa worked as the Senior Education Specialist in the Developmental Medicine Center at Boston Children’s Hospital. Alyssa has also held positions at HILL for Literacy, Scholastic Education, Institute for Learning and Development, and the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University. In 2002, Alyssa received her Ph.D. in Applied Child Development from Tufts University. Alongside her work at Earth Friendly Children, Alyssa conducts comprehensive reading and writing language evaluations and consults with families and schools around issues related to dyslexia, educational assessment and learning disabilities. 

Some of Alyssa's favorite..

Book memories she read as child: Madeline (Bemelmans), Where the Sidewalk Ends (Silverstein), Little Women (Alcott), Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself (Blume), Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Taylor), Diary of a Young Girl (Frank), The Secret Garden (Burnett), The Westing Game (Raskin)

Read-aloud chapter books: Dory Fantasmagory (Hanlon), My Father's Dragon (Gannett), Wishtree (Applegate), Flora and Ulysses (DiCamillo)

Board books: Little Pea (Rosenthal), Baby Animals:  Black and White (Tildes), Goodnight Gorilla (Rathmann), Look Look! (Linenthal), Eating the Alphabet (Ehlert)

Books about learning differences: Aaron Slater, Illustrator (Beaty), A Walk in the Words (Talbott), The Lightning Thief (Riordan), The Girl Who Thought in Pictures (Mosca)

Tween Graphic Novels:  When Stars are Scattered (Jamieson and Mohamed), Guts (Telgemeier), Roller Girl (Jamieson), El Deafo (Bell)

Books read this year: Hello Beautiful (Napolitano), Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (Zevin), Our Missing Hearts (Ng), Lessons in Chemistry (Garmus)