Eerdmans Books for Young Readers publishes board books, picture books, novels, and nonfiction. We currently publish 18 to 20 books a year. We seek high-quality manuscripts that are honest, wise, and hopeful, and we publish stories that simply delight us with their storylines, characters, or good humor. Books that celebrate diversity, explore the natural world, share stories of historical or cultural significance, and relate to contemporary social issues are of special interest to us.

We are currently seeking books that relate to the following topics—and beyond.

• Manuscripts appropriate for our Spectacular STEAM for Curious Readers and Stories from Latin America series
• Stories featuring diverse stories and experiences, including those related to:
  •  Race, ethnicity, and culture
  •  Gender and sexuality
  • (Dis)ability and neurodiversity
  • Age and community
• Stories with a strong sense of place
• Creative and compelling nonfiction manuscripts about nature, STEAM subjects, history, social studies, the arts, religion, et al.
• Creative and compelling poetry collections
• Religious manuscripts with lyrical or creative approaches
• Stories set at the intersection of religion and culture

We are not currently interested in:

• Didactic and moralistic stories
• Storybook Bibles or other longform retellings of biblical text
• Horror, fantasy, or other genre-driven stories
• Early reader manuscripts
• Young adult manuscripts
  
  

We strongly encourage writers and illustrators to become familiar with our publications and the general trade children’s book market before submitting any material for consideration. Please review our books in our catalog, on our website, or at your local library or bookstore to determine whether your manuscript or artwork is appropriate for us.

Please note that we do not accept text or art generated by AI.

For Writers

While Eerdmans Books for Young Readers prefers agented submissions, we will accept unsolicited submissions via the email address below. However, we respond only to submissions we are interested in publishing.

We do not require submissions to be exclusive, but we do ask that you inform us if you are submitting simultaneously elsewhere. Please do inform us if another publisher has expressed interest in your manuscript. If you have not heard from us after four months, you may assume that your submission does not fit the needs of our list.

For picture book submissions, please include your full manuscript. We prefer that submissions not include illustrations unless you are submitting as an author-illustrator.

For novel submissions, you may submit a full manuscript or a query with a synopsis and at least three chapters.

Due to a change of our office location, we will not be reviewing hard copy submissions received after June 2024. We apologize for any inconvenience, and you are welcome to submit your manuscript again via email.

Send manuscript submissions to:

ebyrsubmissions@eerdmans.com

For Illustrators

Illustrators are welcome to submit artwork samples. Please submit your portfolio or samples of your work along with contact information and your website. We will keep your samples on file to be considered for future projects. Due to the large volume of submissions we receive, we are unable to respond to queries about samples.

Submit illustration samples to: illustrationsubmissions@eerdmans.com