Authors & Illustrators Wild About Kidlit!
Before we close the book on 2025, I welcome you to peruse my annual Writers’ Rumpus Year in Review. As with my first review post back in 2017, my goal for 2025 is to showcase the breadth and depth of our offerings from our talented contributors with a single post from each. Click on a date link below, and you’ll be magically whisked to the complete post, no sleighs or reindeer required!
Kimberly, it’s my pleasure to welcome you to Writers’ Rumpus! Congratulations on your debut picture book, Tic-Tac-Toe Chicken, published August 19, 2025 by Third State
Spark – Jim West’s Electrifying Adventures in Creating the Microphone is the first nonfiction picture book biography in the Black Innovators Series by MIT Kids Press, an imprint of Candlewick. Today is this remarkable book’s birthday, and I’m honored to welcome talented author Ainissa Ramirez to Writers’ Rumpus.
“Impossible!” you cry. “Nonsense!” I reply. Here are ten common issues found in novel manuscripts and tips to help you avoid or correct them.
Yes, I have a weakness for dragon books, especially those that portray dragons as creatures capable of intelligent thought and compassion. I’m definitely the kind of person who would go up to one and try to strike up a conversation, if the chance ever presented itself in the scaly, fire-breathing flesh.
When Debra wrote to our blog about a potential interview regarding her nonfiction picture book, A Family for Zoya: The True Story of an Endangered Cub, I took one look at the book cover and signed up immediately.
These alphabet books are out of this world! One introduces readers to space. One delights us in a magical robot world. One reveals an ever-changing
OVER the MOON is Natalie Lloyd’s third sparkling middle grade novel, published in 2019 by Scholastic Press. How I missed it until now, I seriously don’t know. But now that I’ve discovered this wonderful book, I want to shout from the moon just how much I adore it.
The back cover of this dystopian novel asks this thought-provoking question: What if your body held the map to your future?
Rajani pours her heart and incredible talent into each new story for children she writes: it’s no wonder she has garnered so many well-deserved awards!
Whether you’ve been naughty or nice, you’re invited to peruse my 2024 Writers’ Rumpus Year in Review! As another year draws to a close, I continue to marvel at the variety and quality of our posts, and thank all of our authors and readers for your commitment to our kidlit blog. Once again, I’ve been honored and challenged to highlight one post from each of our talented contributors with an image, date link, and brief summary. Enjoy!!
Every so often, a book rocks me to my core. THE DO MORE CLUB, a middle grade novel in verse by Dana Kramaroff, is just such a book. I’m not typically drawn to books in this style, but I’m so glad the tag line, “Spread Kindness So Hate Can’t Win” made me overcome my hesitation.
October is my favorite month, with leaves creating a tapestry of glorious colors, pumpkins popping up here, there, and everywhere, costumed kiddos knocking at my door, and the cool temps inviting me to break out my sweater collection. I hope you enjoy three picture books I’ve chosen to honor delightful, frightful, celebratory October.
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll hope, you’ll dream. Resilience, a fictional Mar’s rover, is so full of humanity, he will leap off the pages and right into your hearts.
WRITERS' RUMPUS 