Coral Rumble

Coral Rumble has worked as a poet and performer for many years, and now specializes in writing and performing for children. She is featured in Favourite Poets, published by Hodder Children’s Books. Michael Rosen has commented, “Rumble has a dash and delight about her work.”

Coral has had four collections published – Creatures, Teachers and Family Features, Breaking the Rules, My Teacher’s as Wild as a Bison, and Riding a Lion. Two of her earlier collections were featured in the Best Books supplement of Junior Education Mag, and were selected as ‘choices’ by The Children’s Poetry Bookshelf. More recently, her new collection, Riding a Lion, has been shortlisted for the national North Somerset Teachers’ Book Awards, 2021. Coral’s verse novel, Little Light, is currently a recommended title for National Poetry Day, 2021. Her next collection, Things That Should be in a Poem, for KS1, is to be published at the beginning of 2022.

Coral has contributed to around 170+ anthologies for children. You will find her work in various trade books, and she is very proud that one of her poems was included in a poetry exhibition at the National Football Museum in Preston! In the past she has contributed to the National Poetry Day resources for schools, produced by the Poetry Society, and is part of the Poetry Society (Education) advisory group. Coral is Poetry Editor for the Writers’ Advice Centre in London.

Coral won the Caterpillar Poetry Prize, 2018, with a poem called “Mustafa’s Jumper”, and was asked to grow the poem into a story of the same name, which was published in 2019 (Wacky Bee Books). Coral teamed up with her illustrator daughter, Charlotte Cooke, when working on Mustafa’s Jumper. They had previously worked on a picture book together, The Adventures of the Owl and the Pussycat, which was longlisted for the ‘Oscar’s First Book Prize’ award, and has been read a number of times on Cbeebies TV.

In addition, Coral has delivered inset training for teachers, both independently, and on behalf of the Poetry Society and British Council, and works regularly on education projects, with all age groups, around the country. Coral often performs and gives workshops at arts centres, bookshops, libraries, theatres and festivals, and was one of the team of poets providing poetry reading workshops at the Royal Festival Hall. She has given workshops in some unusual places, too, the grandest venue being Buckingham Palace!

Coral was one of the writers of the popular Cbeebies TV programmes, ‘Poetry Pie’ and ‘The Rhyme Rocket’. She is also the writer of the Pinkasaurus stories broadcast on Cbeebies Radio.