Over the past few years, Orca Book Publishers has been working to create an accessible ebook program for children and teens. We are now happy to announce that Orca has over 250 accessible ebooks available from our existing book list.
All new books published by Orca will be “born accessible” which means building accessible ebooks starts at the beginning of the book’s creation. As well, Orca is committed to an ongoing effort to bring the entire catalog up to accessible ebook standards. Our goal is to reach more readers, wherever they are, with whatever format they need or want; accessibility in the broader sense has always been a part of our mandate, and this is the latest effort we are making to ensure young readers have every opportunity to read.
These accessible ebooks enrich the reading experience for children and teens who are blind, have low vision or are colour blind, have difficulty holding books or turning pages, are neurodivergent or have dyslexia.
Orca’s new accessible ebooks allow readers to:
– Understand the content of images, graphics, and photos through detailed descriptions of images
– Navigate the text in multiple ways using the table of contents, hierarchical titles and enhanced wayfinding structures
– Use page lists to match page numbers to print editions
– Reach the chosen part of the text using the index and start reading from the desired page
– Identify and read bulleted and numbered lists
– Customize text and layout, including background color
– Screen reader and text-to-speech friendly
– Discover the accessible aspects of the book through metadata
See Orca’s full list of accessible ebooks on our website.