Malls and commercial spaces occupy a dimension of parents’ lives as places in which they can visit and spend time with their small children.  In our international study of parents’ networks of information about children’s literacy and development, we regard malls and commercial spaces as providing opportunities for families to access networks that share information about children’s learning. We build on the method of an ecological survey developed by Neuman and Celano (2001) to record these commercial affordances. Such ecological theory has been used in some early childhood education studies (McNaughton, 2001) to explore the relationship among children, parents, and surrounding services. The research design for our study documents and analyzes reading materials, records signs and visual displays and describes the nature and location of commercial spaces and what they can tell us about privileging certain perspectives on children’s literacy and development. Globalization and flows of information play a role in knowledge networks crossing international contexts.