Books that respect how much children can understand

Early Education Books is a family-run publishing house and online store. Enlighten Press is our founding and flagship imprint; Startups, Open Minds Inquiry and Moonbear Publishing sit alongside it. Together they make purposeful books for early learning centres, schools, libraries, homes and specialist settings.

What we make

Children’s nonfiction and stories about the things children actually ask about: feelings, bodies, consent and wellbeing, neurodiversity, relationships and belonging, science, nature and everyday choices. Most titles use real photography, so children see actual faces, bodies, processes and places rather than cartoons of them.

The main formats are large-format, laminated Big Books for shared reading; smaller books and Lap Books for older children, homes, libraries and small groups; simple early-years titles; and packs organised around a teaching purpose or a child’s need.

What we believe

Children are intelligent participants in their own learning, and they can understand more than adults often assume. Complex ideas can be made accessible without being flattened. Questions give children a role in discovery instead of asking them to listen passively.

Feelings are information. The first step is to notice and allow them, not to shame or suppress them. Naming an experience makes room for perspective and, often, a strategy. Confidence tends to come from trying, making mistakes and having another go.

These are founder positions and editorial principles, not clinical claims. A book may help introduce a subject, give children language, support a conversation or invite observation and practice. It doesn’t treat a condition or guarantee a change in behaviour, and it isn’t a replacement for professional support.

Where it started

Books are a family legacy for our founder, Melissa Reve. During the final year of an applied arts degree she found a book on arts-based research, and her work became centred on perception, choice and the creative process. Further study in positive psychology followed, along with a continuing interest in neuroscience, self-awareness and how people make choices.

The decision to write for children came from that study and from being a mother. Children face plenty of pressure to dull themselves to fit in. Melissa wanted to make books that respect children’s intelligence, honour their aesthetic awareness and treat them as the authors of their own thoughts, feelings and futures. The mission is still the same: teach children the power of choice through self-awareness.

Melissa prefers to stay behind the books rather than in front of them, so you won’t find a founder portrait here. The books are the point.

Made and printed in Australia

Our books are printed in Australia, roughly 90 minutes from our Australian warehouse. Keeping printing close to fulfilment shortens the distance between production and your delivery, and supports local jobs and the Australian printing industry. We’re confirming the paper-sourcing certification with our printer and will name the standard here once we can.

Australian orders ship from our Australian warehouse; New Zealand orders ship from our New Zealand warehouse; US orders currently ship from Australia.

Who we work with

Early childhood directors and educators, primary teachers, librarians, principals, parents and grandparents, psychologists, learning and behaviour support services, and science and animal-learning organisations. Often the person using the book isn’t the person approving the budget, so we try to give both of them enough detail to decide: sample pages, formats, what’s included and how a title tends to be used.

If you’d like a recommendation for a particular child, group or topic, email admin@enlightenpress.com.au (in New Zealand, admin@enlightenpress.co.nz) and tell us the age and what you’re working with.