Introduction to the volume

There is little question that COVID-19 has had profound implications for the care and education of young children as well as work with their families. This volume gathers together the informed perspectives of researchers in the field as they have struggled to understand and address the many challenges associated with a worldwide health pandemic. The chapter begins with a brief explanation of how the project originated and the process of identifying contributors for the chapters. Next, it examines the unique contributions made by a compilation of original research specific to the impact of COVID-19 on the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC). As the title of the book suggests, the 25 assembled chapters offer keen professional insights from an international team of teachers/scholars who have dealt directly with the complex issues brought about by this life-threatening illness;adapted to drastic measures implemented to contain the disease;and attempted to normalize the lives of children, families, and early childhood personnel despite major—and sometimes devastating—changes to the lives that they led previously. The introduction then provides a synopsis of the book’s content that is clustered into five different themes, each consisting of four or more chapters. It closes with some observations about the long-term consequences that this persistent virus and its variants have inflicted upon human beings, especially those highly vulnerable individuals in the early childhood phase, defined as infancy up to and including 8 years of age. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.