• ECC News

Five Things to Know about the Bologna Children’s Book Fair | June 8, 2017

By Hillary Doyle (ECC Chair, Rights & Co-Editions Manager at Scholastic Inc.)

Imagine a children’s book paradise in the sunny hills of northern Italy, where kid-lit lovers from across the globe converge to enjoy delicious pasta, gelato, and conversation about all of our favorite books. That place is real — it’s the Bologna Book Fair, held every spring in Bologna, Italy! Here are five things you should know about the Bologna Children’s Book Fair:

1. Unlike most US-based publishing conventions you may have heard of, the Bologna Book Fair has a strong focus on buying and selling international rights. Subsidiary Rights teams from publishers and literary agencies across the world come to pitch books from their list to acquiring editors from everywhere you can think of.
2. Many attendees, rights-sellers and editors alike, take back-to-back meetings for the duration of the fair — which can add up to over 60 meetings over the span of four days!
3. Aside from selling foreign rights, the Bologna Book Fair also shines the spotlight on up-and-coming illustrators. There is an exhibition featuring 75 new illustrators, as well as an “illustrators’ wall,” where any artist can post samples of their work (see a photo here).
4. One of the main objectives of meetings at Bologna is to determine what types of books are working best in different markets. For the past few years, there hasn’t been a dominating trend, as most publishers focus on finding titles that are just right for their list. (You can see a run-down of trends discussed at this year’s fair Publishers’ Weekly here).
5. Several awards are announced each year at the fair, including the Bologna Ragazzi Awards (a past winner you may know is Peter Sís’ The Wall (Farrar, Strous & Giroux BYR / Macmillan, 2007)) and the Hans Christian Andersen Award (which has previously been awarded to American authors Scott O’Dell, Paula Fox, Virginia Hamilton, Katherine Paterson, and Maurice Sendak). The 2018 nominees for the Hans Christian Andersen Award were announced at this year’s fair, and include author Pam Muñoz Ryan and illustrator Jerry Pinkney.