With over 50 years of experience, the Bologna Children’s Book Fair has succeeded in bringing together a unique and diverse global audience: the result is the world’s premium copyright business hub when it comes to publishing and a new core that now extends to all multi-media content for children. The fair is also a venue for professional development, with hundreds of meetings on different topics. Located in different halls around the fair, the Cafés are areas for debate and entertainment with opportunities to listen and share experiences with a whole range professionals in an open and informal atmosphere. Each café specialises in one particular area and so there are: the Authors Café, the Digital Café, the Illustrators Café and the Translators Café. Every year the fair organizes numerous awards, given to publishers, authors and illustrators; these are some of the most coveted international prizes in the publishing world — for excellence in graphic styles, innovative format, artistic strength, balance, and with voice and narrative for young people to engage in. Winning one of the prizes or gaining a special mention means extraordinary visibility for a title in the publishing world, leading to the sale of rights in many countries. As is crucial in the digital domain: the award-winning apps in Bologna invariably comes from global group of digital work recommended to parents as a safe and educational experience to enjoy. The media coverage and focus of the thousands of professionals attending the tradeshow each year put the winners at the centre stage of events. One of the most recent thematic events within the fair is Bologna Digital Media: a vibrant hub where publishers, developers, TV and cinema producers, animation studios, artists and authors take part in exciting events that mix start-ups with established brands and take advantage of the many opportunities offered by the digital, print and media worlds. The Illustrators Exhibition displays a wide selection of artists from different countries forming a unique showcase for both fiction and non-fiction. An international jury of experts examines thousands of works submitted by both established and emerging illustrators to select those who will be included in the exhibition and in the Illustrators Annual

Read more on Aldus publication European Book Fairs: Facts and Figures