This year the 2023 Bologna Children’s Book Fair, at BolognaFiere from 6 to 9 March, celebrates its first sixty years of scouting, research and continuous growth. Years that saw the birth of projects abroad, the launch of initiatives and collaborations. Years that have demonstrated and put to the test, particularly in difficult times like the recent ones, the resilience and inventiveness of the main world event dedicated to the exchange of publishing rights for children and young people.
An important milestone and an opportunity to analyze the results achieved and, at the same time, to look at the future with new ideas, energies and projects.
There will be 1350 exhibitors arriving in Bologna from around 90 countries and regions of the world, who will meet in the pavilions of BolognaFiere also for the simultaneous events Bologna Licensing Trade Fair/Kids (and at BolognaBookPlus.
To celebrate this milestone, 2023 Bologna Children’s Book Fair wanted to invite the biggest names in illustration and publishing for children and teenagers who have marked these first sixty years of activity.
Like Fabian Negrin, Susanna Tamaro, Elena Odriozola, Martin Salisbury, Alessandro Sanna, Axel Scheffler, Klaas Verplancke, just to name a few.
Turning 60 and feeling fit
“If we look at the road traveled since we celebrated our 50th anniversary ten years ago, we see an enormous development of our presence abroad and of our range of activities. Today we are talking about a system of fairs that ranges from children’s books to licensing and publishing in general, with an extension on the other side of the world, in Shanghai. In addition to a continuous cycle of collaborations and presences in many different countries. If we look to the future…. there is no shortage of projects, 2023 Bologna Children’s Book https://www.bolognachildrensbookfair.com/home/878.html is ready to get back to work for the next decade with the same energy and creativity as always: “still rocking”, as reads our slogan!”, is the comment of the exhibition manager Elena Pasoli.
One year of anniversaries
Among the celebrations scheduled for this sixtieth anniversary, the exhibition “Landscapes and portraits of BCBF”. A tribute to the aesthetics of the fair with the illustrations that make up the 2023 visual identity, inspired by the colors of the logo and chosen among the candidates for a contest aimed at all the winning artists of the past ten editions of the exhibition.
The event will also be the stage for a live painting project, which will invite all visiting illustrators to leave a memory of Bologna by applying their art to the colors of the logo of the Bologna event.
But at 2023 Bologna Children’s Book Fair there will also be “anniversaries within the anniversary”, with a tribute to one of the protagonists of 20th-century Italian literature, Italo Calvino.
In the year of the centenary of his birth, in fact, the fair pays tribute to him with “Italian Excellence. Figures for Italo Calvino” exhibiting 120 illustrations inspired by the literary production of the great author.