1964-2023: the Bologna Children’s Book Fair (BCBF) celebrates sixty years of scouting, research and continuous growth that have seen the creation of projects abroad, the launch of innovative initiatives and fruitful partnerships. Even in the face of significant recent and current challenges, the world’s most important event dedicated to the trade in publishing rights for content for children and young people has proved its huge capacity for resilience and inventiveness. The Fair, in fact, is a place where ideas from all over the world meet, giving life to new and unexpected creative production. This success is thanks to the permanent dialogue and collaborative relationship that BCBF has established and nurtured over decades, since its initial foundation, with publishers and the entire international children’s book community.

This important milestone now offers an opportunity to reflect on its achievements and, at the same time, look to the future with new ideas, energy and projects. Together with the Bologna Licensing Trade Fair/Kids (BLTF/K) and BolognaBookPlus (BBPlus), the event is scheduled to take place in the halls of Bologna Exhibition Centre from 6 to 9 March 2023: Still rocking at 60!

For a birthday truly worth celebrating, the Bologna Children’s Book Fair has brought together, from all over the world, the greatest names in illustration, publishing and critics for children and young people, whose work, participation and contributions have marked these first sixty years of BCBF. Among those expected at the Fair are: Albertine Zullo, Beatrice Alemagna, Rotraut Susanne Berner, Marc Boutavant, Rebecca Dautremer, Laura Carlin, Suzy Lee, Nicholas Jubber, Katsumi Komagata, David Levithan, Leonard Marcus, Manuel Marsol, Sarah Mazzetti, Hasan Mousavi, Fabian Negrin, Roger Mello, Elena Odriozola, Martin Salisbury, Alessandro Sanna, Axel Scheffler, Susanna Tamaro, Klaas Verplancke.

Among the eagerly awaited celebrations planned for this 60th anniversary is the exhibition Landscapes and portraits of BCBF, a celebratory tribute to the aesthetics of the fair including the illustrations that make up the 2023 visual identity, inspired by the colours of the logo and chosen from the work of entries in a contest open to the winners of the past ten editions of the Illustrators Exhibition. The Fair will also host a live painting project, extending an invitation to all the visiting illustrators to have fun making art in the colours of the BCBF logo, leaving a memory of BCBF.

There will also be an anniversary within the anniversary, with a meaningful tribute to one of the absolute protagonists of 20th century Italian literature: in the centenary year of his birth, the Bologna Children’s Book Fair is paying homage to Italo Calvino with Italian Excellence. Illustrations for Italo Calvino. The exhibition will exhibit 120 illustrations inspired by the great author’s literary production, including works by important artists that have already been published as well as unpublished illustrators that have won an international competition organized by the Fair.