Sieruta first came to prominence due to the 1989 publication of
Heartbeats and Other Stories, a collection of nine young adult stories, which attracted positive notice from
School Library Journal and
Publishers Weekly. After this, however, Sieruta largely moved into criticism and reviewing. In the early 1990s, he was among the first reviewers for
The Horn Book Guide, and was a regular contributor to
The Horn Book Magazine from then until his death. As an avid collector of children's books, Sieruta also maintained a blog, Collecting Children's Books, beginning in 2007. At the time of his death, Sieruta had largely completed the manuscript for another book, ''Wild Things!: Acts of Mischief in Children's Books'', co-written with
Betsy Bird and
Julie Danielson. The book was published by
Candlewick Press in 2014. == Death ==