A marvellous collaboration
A bespoke online bookstore for almost all of the books for adults on Outdoor Play published in the UK (and some from beyond) is now available, thanks to a great collaboration between Early Childhood Outdoors and Richard Myers at Books Education.
Richard has been providing a fantastic range of books on all aspects of playing and learning outdoors for our annual professional gatherings since we started, and was ready to do the same for our event last March – which of course had to be postponed. His business was hugely affected by the lockdown and subsequent cancellation of all early years conferences, so we started to talk about how we might, in some small way, help him to keep things going.
This has turned into a lovely productive collaboration!
This bespoke range can now be accessed at any time, not merely during our annual gatherings – something I’ve always wanted to see available. With the help of Richard’s colleague David, the Books Education website now has a section dedicated specifically to outdoor play, which contains all the books (numbering 59 at the moment) that we recommend to them. This section can be found down the left-hand side of the home page, highlighted in green.
All of these ECO endorsed books are also badged with our dandelion logo, wherever they are on the website. If you would like to recommend any other books please just let me know and, if terms allow, Richard will endeavor to add this to his stock. Of course, there is also a much wider range of books for early years practice on the rest of the site.
Publications from Books Education are always 10% off the publisher’s sales price and are sent postage free – so this is an excellent way to browse, find and purchase reading material about play and learning outdoors. A short description of each of these books is given in the new 3rd edition of my book Playing and Learning Outdoors (pages 15 to 20), where I’ve organised the references in headed sections so as to help readers locate the kind of book that they need.
But it gets even better!
Books Education has recently introduced a weekly 20% offer on a selected Book Of The Week – and have generously extended this long-term for all those involved in the ECO meshwork to ALL of the titles listed as ‘Early Childhood Outdoors recommends’.
He says,“I would like to offer all ECO members 20% discount on ALL titles listed as ECO recommends, to be supplied post free. I would ask members wishing to take advantage of this offer to visit our website www.bookseducation.co.uk, click on the Early Childhood Outdoors link (in green in the left-hand side bar on the home page), select the book(s) they wish to order then email their order directly to me at richardmyers.bookseducation@gmail.com quoting ECO/JAN.
I will then forward the order to David who will create a PayPal invoice allowing for 20% discount, rather than the regular 10% shown. Books will be dispatched as soon as payment is received. I hope this offer will be welcomed by your members.” [I can vouch that this is a quick and reliable service with excellent customer care].
So, now we have our ‘very own’ specialist outdoor bookshop, with everything on continuous offer!
I also hope this marvellous offer will be welcomed by the ECO meshwork. What a nice example of how the collaborative and amplification values of Early Childhood Outdoors can translate into practice that is a win for everyone – not least all the children who will benefit from the thinking and motivation these great books will promote.
Happy reading!
