About ECL Publishing
Welcome to the Early Childhood Learning (ECL) Publishing! Our mission is to serve families by offering books written and illustrated to encourage cognitive and aesthetic development of young children while building happy memories of play to support life-long reading habits.
We are a small, Canadian family business that came about through the contributions of four generations.
At the centre of ECL Publishing is Olivia, the youngest member of our family, for whom the stories were written by her grandmother and whose enthusiastic response to the home-made copies of the books made us think of sharing them with others. The books would have not happened if not for Olivia’s great-grandfather, who at the age of 86 used his talent and expertise as an artist and designer to create fabulous illustrations for the stories. Olivia’s great-grandmother applied her professional editorial skills to prepare the books for printing and Olivia’s father and uncle, drawing on their business experience, helped with the logistics of this undertaking and set up the website. And Olivia’s grandfather assisted in every other possible way (as good grandfathers do!).
We hope that your child will enjoy the books as much as Olivia has and that they will bring hours of happy time together for your family, as you meet and share adventures of the new animal friends.
About the books:
This collection of 10 books, each featuring a unique animal character, was written to stimulate imagination, creative play and encourage self-directed as well as interactive activities for young children. The stories are lighthearted, as the animals explore the world, occasionally getting into mischief. Each story ends with a playful invitation for the child to help the animal understand their predicament, encouraging problem solving.
The style of illustrations is deliberately adjusted to capture the child’s imagination while creating the capacity to focus and explore nuance that is frequently drown in the “visual noise” of many children’s books on the market. The boldness of shapes and lines is balanced with the disciplined use of colour and detail, supporting the child’s aesthetic development and artistic learning.
The length of the stories and the amount of text on each two-page spread respond to the attention span of babies and toddlers (and their love for flipping the pages!). The rhyme and rhythm of the verses make it easy for the story to be learned by heart and support development of preschoolers' reading skills by associating sounds and the written text. The books are sized just right for the small hands (5.5"x5.5") and are sturdy enough to last through hours of reading and play.
Grounded in love for Olivia, the books celebrate childhood as a happy time to play, learn and explore. They are recommended for children between 6 months and 6 years of age.
About the author:
Dr. Anna M. Kindler is professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada and internationally acclaimed expert in child development in art.
About the illustrator:
Andrzej Jan Wroblewski is an artist, designer and educator.
About the printing:
We selected the MCRL Overseas Group as the provider of printing services for our books. They are a Canadian company with teams in North America and China, committed to high quality products, environmental sustainability and they are a supporter of the Trees for the Future initiative. To ensure that their printing is safe for children and the environment, they use eco-friendly soy-based ink which is lead-free and phthalate free.
About the shipping:
To keep the shipping costs as low as possible, we use Canada Post standard delivery for all Canadian and US orders, which normally takes between 3-9 business days. The cost will be calculated at the checkout. For expediated shipping and rates for shipping outside of Canada and the US please contact our Customer Service and we will be glad to provide you with a quote.
Shipping tip: Ordering three or ten books at once maximizes savings on the shipping costs.
To purchase our books:
To place an order, please click here.
If you like our books, please also inquire about them at your local bookstore.
Contact us:
You can contact our Customer Service at info@eclpublishing.ca. We will be glad to assist you.