Rise X Penguin Workshop

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Overview

Our mission:

To engage, empower, and evolve the youngest readers (ages 0-5) with authentic, relevant, and elegant books.

Publishing books for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers is an immense responsibility. At RISE, we have the power to inspire our readers to become a generation of empowered, confident, self-loving, empathetic, and resilient people… all through the power of exposure. Every book we publish serves to help children feel smart, capable, important, safe, and loved.

Our authors are experts in their subjects, either lived or learned, writing in language that is age-specific. Our illustrators are artists and creators in their own right, making art infused with experience, passion, and purpose. Together, we create books with imagery and information that authentically interest our readers and grow them into people who love books and love themselves. What could be more important than this?

Follow us on Instagram @risebooks

Submission guidelines

At RISE, we welcome any submission, text or art, that sits within our mission to empower the youngest readers, ages 0-5. We accept submissions from agents, previously published authors and illustrators, and aspiring authors and illustrators. 

Established or aspiring authors, please send work that you create from a place of expertise, lived or learned. 

Established or aspiring illustrators, please send samples that show your voice and feel like part of a larger idea or body of work. Concept-driven passion projects encouraged. No prior experience in the 0-5 realm is necessary, just a spark of relevancy and applicability to our mission. 

For those who do not have an existing contact/relationship with someone at RISE or Penguin Workshop, please send your submission to: penguinworkshopsubmissions@penguinrandomhouse.com and add RISE to your subject line. We will do our best to get back to you, but based on volume, we unfortunately cannot guarantee a response to every submission.

RISE x Penguin Workshop Launch

Take a look at our launch catalog

People are talking about RISE:

  • Olu & Greta, How to Say Hello to a Worm, Solitary Animals, The Catalogue of Hugs,and Yes! No!: A First Conversation About Gender were named 2023 Best Children’s Books of the Year by Bank Street College of Education (link)
  • How to Say Hello to a Worm is a Ezra Jack Keats Award Winner (link)
  • Olu & Greta is a AIGA 50 Books | 50 Covers Winner (link)
  • Our Skin: A First Conversation About Race named an American Library Association Notable Book of 2022 (link)
  • Order The Knowing by New York Times Bestselling Author and Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco (link)
  • Read Kirkus’ STARRED REVIEW of What a Map Can Do (link)
  • Read Booklist’s STARRED REVIEW of Eat Your Superpowers!  (link)
  • Cecily Kaiser’sInterview with Horn Book Magazine (link)
  • Nicole Fox on “Penguin Young Readers Emerging Voices – Picture Books” panel (link)
  • Maria Elias on “ADC – Judging a Book By Its Cover” panel (link)

Meet the Team