The Emma Press announces third book of children’s poetry by Kate Wakeling with illustrator Elīna Brasliņa
The Emma Press is delighted to announce acquisition of a third collection of poems for children by Kate Wakeling, illustrated by Elīna Brasliņa, the team behind the award-winning bestsellers Moon Juice and Cloud Soup.
Worldwide rights were acquired by the publisher directly from the author.
The Emma Press first published Kate Wakeling’s poems in a series of anthologies before publishing her debut children’s collection, Moon Juice (2016), a Carnegie nominee and winner of the CLiPPA. Wakeling and Brasliņa’s second book with The Emma Press, Cloud Soup, was published in 2021.
“One of the best things we’ve done”
Author Kate Wakeling says: “It is a dream to collaborate with Elīna. I love the wit and intelligence that infuses all her drawings. And it is a special delight to work again with The Emma Press, a publisher whose skill and ethos I couldn’t admire more.”
Illustrator Elīna Brasliņa says “Kate’s poems are very clever and full of lovable, quirky characters. I feel lucky to have gotten to illustrate so many of them and am thrilled to be working on a third collection with her!”
Emma Dai’an Wright, founding editor of The Emma Press, says, “The stars aligned in 2016, when Kate agreed to write more children’s poems for us and Elīna agreed to illustrate them, and the dream team was born. It’s one of the best things we’ve done and I’m so happy that we get to go around again and create another beautiful book for children to love.”
The book will be published by The Emma Press early in 2028.
About the author:
Kate Wakeling is a poet and musicologist who writes for both children and adults. Her debut collection of children’s poetry, Moon Juice (The Emma Press) is illustrated by Elīna Brasliņa, won the 2017 CLiPPA and was nominated for the 2018 CILIP Carnegie Medal. Kate’s second collection for children, Cloud Soup, came out in 2021 and was shortlisted for the 2022 CliPPA and selected as a Book of the Month by the Scotsman and the Guardian. A pamphlet of Kate’s poetry for adults, The Rainbow Faults, is published by The Rialto. Kate’s most recent collection of poetry is for Key Stage 1 and is called A Dinosaur at The Bus Stop (Otter-Barry Books). It was shortlisted for the CliPPA in 2024. Kate studied music at university and often collaborates with musicians, including as writer-in-residence for Aurora Orchestra. She loves writing scripts for musical performances, and her work has featured at the Southbank Centre, the Barbican, Kings Place and on BBC Radio 3.
About the illustrator:
Elīna Brasliņa studied printmaking and Graphic Arts at the Art Academy of Latvia. She has been nominated for numerous awards in Latvia, and has won the Zelta Ābele National Prize for Book Art four times. She was awarded the International Jānis Baltvilks Prize in 2017.
About The Emma Press:
The Emma Press is an award-winning independent publishing house specialising in poetry, short fiction, essays and children’s books. It was founded by Emma Dai’an Wright in 2012 with the mission of making literature and publishing as welcoming and accessible as possible and is based in Birmingham, UK. The Emma Press was a Finalist for the British Book Awards Small Press of the Year (Midlands Region, 2024, 2025, 2026), and shortlisted for the Independent Publishers Guild Alison Morrison Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Award (2024).
For further information or to request a review copy please contact:
Georgia Wall, Director (Maternity) The Emma Press | georgia@theemmapress.com
