The 60th Bologna Children’s Book Fair of 2023: I’m Back!

It happened again! The good folks at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair’s press office have once more allowed me to attend what amounts to the largest international rights fair of children’s literature in the world. What does that mean for this blog? Lots and lots and lots of reporting!

As I write to you I’m happily ensconced in my hotel room, preparing for the next four days. And now that I know where the press office is (something I belatedly forgot to do the first time around) I intend to give you the 411 on all the events that I can.

To give you a sense of the coming week, here is the schedule that I am hoping to attend. You’ll notice that a number of the programs listed overlap. I have every intention of cloning myself so as to attend these. In lieu of that, if you, my readers, feel that one program is of more interest to you than another, do be so good as to let me know.

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Programs I’d Love to Attend

Monday 3/6

10:30 – “Accessible Illustrated Books and Where to Find Them” (6 March, 10.30 a.m., BBPlus Theatre) on the challenges for companies that work to produce children’s  books according to accessibility standards

11:30 – Precious Things. Beatric Alemagna and Her Relentless Research – Illustrators Cafe

1:00 – Illustrators Survival Corner is “The State of Artificial Intelligence – Friend or Foe? – Masterclass with Julien Palier” (6 March, 1 p.m., The Illustrators Survival Corner)

1:30 – “Stories across media. How children and young adults experience new forms of reading and storytelling in the digital dimension” (6 March, 1.30 p.m., Authors Café), focus on the 2023 edition of the BolognaRagazzi CrossMedia Award.

2:00 – Masterclass: Long Live Tomi Ungerer – Martin Salisbury, Beatrice Alemagna and Axel Scheffler will talk about Tomi Ungerer’s influence on their work and on the world of contemporary children’s books in the talk “Long Live Tomi Ungerer” (6 March, 2.00 p.m.). The event is followed by the official opening of the artist’s wall #rememberingTomi, a live painting project that will be inaugurated by Beatrice Alemagna and Axel Scheffler. At the conclusion of the conference, in fact, the two guests will each make an illustration on the wall, on opposite sides as a symbolic opening that will be followed by free contributions from the illustrators present. – Hall 30

2:30-3:30 – IBBY Press Conference at Illustrator’s Café

4:00 – “How Artificial Intelligence Technology can change the publishing industry” (6 March, 4.00 p.m., BBPlus Theatre) with Jaesung Jung (I-Scream Arts, South Korea): AI can promote the accessibility of books by transforming sentences into images, thereby giving any talented storyteller the opportunity to become an author and publisher at the same time. A new era full of new opportunities is dawning.

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Tuesday 3/7

10:00 – “Authors vs. Artificial Intelligence” (7 March, 10.00 a.m., The Illustrators Survival Corner), organized by Autori di Immagini: in the US, several artists have taken AI companies to court, accusing them of using millions of copyrighted images to train their AI models. What will happen in Europe? 

OR

10:00 – On 7 March at 10 am, the PublisHer Area at BCBF is hosting the “PublisHer Conference” that will feature discussions on: “The Role of Women in Challenging the Status Quo in Children’s Books”, moderated by Emma House (PublisHer Advisory Board Member e Managing Consultant di Oreham Group, UK), speakers Beatrice Masini (Editorial Director at Bompiani – Gruppo Giunti, Italy), Mariagrazia Mazzitelli (Editorial Director at Salani, Italy) and Monica Martinelli (Editorial Director at Settenove Edizioni, Italy): women make up anywhere from 60-80% of the publishing industry workforce. However, with female publishers, writers, and creatives increasingly asserting their voices in global publishing at the highest levels, it is difficult to square how the status quo of gender role stereotypes and male overrepresentation in children’s books continues to persist. This panel will attempt to shed light on the role of women in children’s book publishing at a time of increasing emphasis on diversity and inclusion in global publishing and greater accessibility of books.

10:30 – “Censorship of Books: what is the state of children’s book banning around the world and what is being done?” (7 March, 10.30 a.m., Sala Bolero) chaired by Barbara Marcus (President and Publisher Random House Children’s Books, USA), with the participation of David Levithan (author, USA), Doris Breitmoser (Managing Editor of the Association for Children’s Literature/Arbeitskreis für Jugendliteratur, Germany), Jon Anderson (President and Publisher of Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing and Board Member of the National Coalition Against Censorship, USA), Machiko Wakatsuki (President and Chief Editor of Bronze Publishing, Japan), Giorgia Grilli, (Professor of Children’s Literature at the University of Bologna and co-founder of the Centre for Research in Children’s Literature at the Department of Educational Sciences, University of Bologna, Italy) and Dora Batalim (Pedagogical Coordinator and lecturer on the Postgraduate Course in Children’s Books at the Università Cattolica in Lisbon and lecturer at the Maria Ulrich School for Childhood Educators, Portugal).

11:30 – “Transatlantic Connections: Literature Childhood and Youth” (7 March, 11.30 a.m., Sala Suite), a round table that aims to initiate a dialogue between African publishing production and that of North and Latin America, in order to better understand the position in these markets and among readers of literature aimed at the Afro-descendant communities. Discussing the topic will be: Anel Perez (Director of Literature and Reading Promotion in the Coordination of Cultural Diffusion of UNAM, Mexico), Bel Santos Mayer (Project Coordinator at the Queiroz Filho Brazilian Institute of Studies and Community Support – IBEAC, and manager of the LiteraSampa Reading Network, Brazil), Vélia Vidal (Director of Corporación Educativa y Cultural Motete, Colombia), William Adjete Wilson (illustrator, Togo/France), moderated by Dolores Prades (Director of Instituto Emilia, Brazil).

3:00 – “Children’s Laureates in conversation” (7 March,  3 p.m., Illustrators Café) a conversation involving seven children’s laureates and literature ambassadors from all over the world, chaired by Julia Eccleshare and featuring Áine Ní Ghlinn (Laureate na nÓg, Ireland); Joseph Coehlo (Waterstone’s Children’s Laureate, United Kingdom); Casi Wyn (Bardd Plant Cymru, Wales); Gabrielle Wang (Children’s Laureate, Australia); Tialda Hoogeveen (Berneboeke ambassadeur Fryslân, Friesland); Nioosha Shams (Sveriges läsambassadör, Sweden); Susanna Mattiangeli (Children’s Laureate, Italy);

4:30 – “Sense and Sensitivity –  Should publishers edit the work of authors who are deceased, creators of popular classics or not change and leave as pieces representative of their original era – with or without appropriate warnings?” (7 March, 4.30 p.m., Sala Bolero): literary experts debate the global challenge of how to make the past and its literature palatable. Speakers are: Pierdomenico Baccalario (author, Italy), Simona Mambrini (traslator, Italy), Beverly Horowitz (Senior Vice-President & Publisher Delacorte Press / Random House Children’s Books, USA), Maria Grazia Mazzitelli (Editorial Director Salani, Italy).

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Wednesday 3/8

12:00 – “Artificial Intelligence-created Art vs. Natural Human Art and its Impacts on Creators and the Publishing Industry” (8 March, 12 p.m., BBPlus Theatre) with Nurgül Şenefe (Illustrators Platform, Turkey), will seek answers to the question of whether AI will be the death of art, or just an evolution of it, with a reflection on new opportunities for illustrators, and an analysis of copyright laws.

12:30 – SCBWI celebrates

3:30 – “Children’s books from Ukraine: working during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine” (8 March, 3.30 p.m., Sala Suite), featuring Yulia Kozlovets (Director of the International Book Arsenal Festival), Romana Romanyshyn and Andriy Lesiv (Art Studio “Agrafka”), Mariana Savka (writer and editor-in-chief of the The Old Lion Publishing House, Ukraine), Olena Odynoka (Deputy Director for International Cooperation at Ukrainian Book Institute, Ukraine) and Tetiana Stus (editor-in-chief of the Junior Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukraine): back in Bologna, they are telling what it has been like, for Ukrainian publishers and illustrators, to live the past 12 months, and whether they have managed to create new books and stories for children.

5:00 – Hen & Ink book launch for Abuelito – Hal 25, B76

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Thursday 3/9

9:00 – IBBY European Regional Conference: “Finding a safe home in books” (9 March, 9.00 a.m., Sala Notturno), during which Fabio Geda (author, Italy), Andriy Lesiv and Romana Romanyshin (authors, designers and illustrators, Ukraine), Margaret Anne Suggs (illustrator, Ireland), Winny Ang (child psychiatrist, Belgium) and Edward van de Vendel (author for children and young people, Netherlands), will be joined by other guests to talk about the power of stories in providing hope and offering refuge and safety at any time and in any place, with the aim of sending out a signal of hope in difficult times by emphasising the right of every child to become a reader.

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Programs I Wish I Could Attend But Cannot Due to Scheduling

6 March 2023 at 3 pm at the BBPlus Theatre – Tales of EUkraine (TEUK)

“How Artificial Intelligence can make publishers more competitive and lead to higher quality and New Media Productions. The Management of massive resources and a personalization of readers’ experiences” (8 March, 5 p.m., BBPlus Theatre).

“Mixing the Digital and Physical World: two Publishing Projects for Today” (6 March, 2.30 p.m., Authors Café) takes a detailed look at the case studies of Super Simple, which proved to be able of attracting new readers, transporting digital characters onto the pages of books, and of BookTOk, with a group students called to present some content they produced and to launch a new chain of digital and physical products for children.

Two meetings will offer a valuable focus on African publishing as part of the Spotlight on Africa project: “Readers of the Future” (7 March, 4.30 p.m., Authors Café), will provide analysis and a look at the future prospects and possibilities concerning the publishing market of a continent that, in the next 50 years, will become home to some of the world’s most populous countries, featuring: Lawrence Njagi (Chairman of the African Publishers Network, Kenya), Anges Félix N’Dakpri (Publisher & Director of Abidjan International Book Fair, GAD Editions, Ivory Coast), Asare Konadu Yamoah (CEO & President of Ghana Publishers Association, Adaex Educational Publications Ltd., Ghana), Julia Claire Norrish (Executive Director of Book Dash, South Africa).

Webtoons (“The webtoon phenomenon” 6 March, 11.30 a.m., Authors Café), which are expanding well beyond the borders of the Asian continent alone, with numbers unthinkable for traditional publishing to the extent that they are now the new frontier of comics

“Once upon a time…The secret story of fairy tales” (7 March, 5.00 p.m., Illustrators Café) with Nicholas Jubber (author, UK) the history of fairy tales in children’s publishing.

“2022 China Children’s Book Market Data Release and Trend Analysis of New Channels” (6 March, 2.00 p.m., Sala Bolero), organised by BCBF with the magazine China Publishers, will feature at the fair.

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Exhibits I Will Most Certainly Attend

A dive into the sea of new Italian comics, 2019-22 which will showcase the best in Italian comic production.

Italian Excellence. Illustrations for Italo Calvino, on display at the heart of the fair with the aim of offering maximum visibility to one of the greatest talents of Italian literature, and thereby encouraging the production of new international editions of the great writer’s works.

The Golden Pinwheel Exhibition (Hall 26, stand B145), organized by China Shanghai Children’s Book Fair in partnership with Bologna Children’s Book Fair. The Golden Pinwheel Young Illustrators Competition is an international illustration contest held annually as part of CCBF, with the support of the Shanghai Press and Publication Administration. Since its creation in 2015, the competition has been providing a venue for emerging illustrators to showcase their talent. It aims to build bridges between them and children’s publishers, both locally and globally.

The eagerly awaited, and deserved, celebrations for the important milestone of the sixtieth begin with the exhibition Landscapes and portraits of BCBF, a playful tribute to the aesthetics of the fair by the winners of the past ten editions of the Illustrators Exhibition who accepted the invitation to take part in a contest launched by BCBF. The challenge was to create an illustration that – using just the four colours that make up the BCBF logo – could render in a single image a moment, place, memory or emotion linked to the Fair experience. The winners were chosen by an exceptional panel of judges brought together for this birthday edition: the creators of the past ten covers of the Illustrators Annual, the winners of the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration and the Biennial of Illustration Bratislava Grand Prix: Albertine Zullo, Rotraut Susanne Berner, Laura Carlin, Nina Wehrle/It’s Raining Elephant, Roger Mello, Hasan Mousavi, Elena Odriozola, Igor Oleynikov, Peter Sís and Ludwig Volbeda.

The winning illustrations were assembled, merged and arranged in a dialogue with each other by the Chialab graphics studio to form the visual identity of this happy 60^th anniversary. Contest entries and winners are on display together at the exhibition that is held at the Service Centre, next to the Illustrators Exhibition, and online on BCBF Galleries. 

THE SOLO EXHIBITION FOR SUZY LEE

The solo exhibition for the artist who created the cover of the Illustrators Annual – a task assigned in alternate years to the winners of the H.C. Andersen Award and the Biennial of Illustration Bratislava Grand Prix – shows the work of well-known Korean artist Suzy Lee, winner of the H.C. Andersen Award in 2022. The exhibition, set up as usual at the Service Centre and available online via BCBF Galleries, displays original works from some of her most famous books: Wave, Shadow, and Mirror (The Border Trilogy), Lines and Summer, as well as the original of the cover of the Illustrators Annual 2023 and some digital images from Alice in Wonderland. A second section of the exhibition is on display at the same time at the MAMbo museum in Bologna. The artist is also attending a meeting at the Illustrators Café on March 8, 3.15 p.m.

THE BRAW AMAZING BOOKSHELF AND 15 YEARS OF OPERA PRIMA

This year too, in addition to the customary showcase for the winners and special mentions, the fair displays The BRAW Amazing Bookshelf exhibition, a selection of 100 entries that are exhibited in a scenic display (and online on BCBF Galleries) open to the public of professionals to browse, read and discover, offering inspiration and generating business opportunities. Alongside these 100 publishing gems, is a focus on 20 of the best books nominated for the Opera Prima award category dedicated to excellent titles by first-time authors or illustrators, in tribute to the first 15 years of the award. The Opera Prima section of the BolognaRagazzi Award was established in 2009 in tribute to the late art director Giovanni Lanzi. “Maestro Lanzi”, as he was called at the Fair, was the creator of the logo and long-time curator of BCBF’s visual identity.

SILENT BOOK CONTEST

A showcase is also dedicated to the books shortlisted for final of the Silent Book Contest – Gianni De Conno Award, this year in its tenth edition, dedicated to the great Italian illustrator and organised by Carthusia Edizioni in collaboration with the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, the Turin Book Fair, the Municipality of Mulazzo and the Associazione Montereggio Paese dei Librai, the IOB – International Organisation of Book Towns, the Centro per il Libro e la Lettura (Centre for Books and Reading) and IBBY Italia. The finalists are to be announced on 6 March at 5.00 p.m. at the Illustrators Café, by: Patrizia Zerbi (publisher and editorial director, Carthusia Edizioni, Italy); Walter Fochesato (president of the jury and expert in children’s literature and history of illustration, Italy); Elena Pasoli (Exhibition Manager, Bologna Children’s Book Fair, Italy); Emanuela Bussolati (illustrator, Italy); Eros Miari (member of the editorial board of the Turin Book Fair, Italy); Mussi Bollini (deputy director of RAI Ragazzi, Italy); Costanza De Conno (secretary of the Silent Book Contest, Italy); Gilberto Borghi (Head of External Relations, BPER Banca, Italy).

QUENTIN BLAKE

The Bologna Children’s Book Fair offers its best wishes for the 90^th birthday of the great English artist and illustrator: an entire wall at the entrance to the fair is dedicated to Quentin Blake, welcoming visitors from all over the world with illustrations created on the occasion of the artist’s birthday. To celebrate Blake’s milestone birthday, indeed, the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration have invited 90 of the UK’s leading illustrators (including Axel Scheffler – best known for his collaborations with Julia Donaldson including The Gruffalo, Lauren Child – former Children’s Laureate and creator of Charlie and Lola, Chris Riddell – political cartoonistfor The Observer, Margaret Calvert – best known as a designer of the UK road sign system, plus Oliver Jeffers, Posy Simmonds, Joey Yu, Hannah Berry and many, many more) to create an image of a candle that references the original meaning of the word ‘illustration’ as “to light up, make light or illuminate”. 

On Monday 6 and Tuesday 7 evenings (from 7.30 pm to 00.30 am), the Salaborsa Library’s facade (in Piazza Maggiore, one of the internationally major public library, that starting from 1966 has been hosting the complete collection of books winners of BCBF awards) will light up thanks to a video mapping performance organized by BCBF in partnership with Bologna Welcome: a special thanks to all the citizens, the tourists, the exhibitors and the visitors gathering in Bologna from all over the world, with the aim of celebrating the important link between BCBF and Bologna, the city that has played a great part in making the fair a unique event in the global publishing scenario, thanks to its liveliness and exceptional care for children’s education.

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And so much more!

Join me this week and I wrap my head around all these talks, all these exhibits, and none of this even includes the different displays from all kinds of nations! It’s going to be a busy week.

Filed under: Bologna Children's Book Fair