Betsy Bird's Blog, page 67

Books From Bologna: Titles I’d Love to See in America (Part One)

All right. This is it. The penultimate capper. The moment of truth. The posts to end all Bologna posts. I’m back in the States now, so I figure this is a pretty neat way to round everything out.

A couple caveats before I begin, though. While I play fairly close attention to what does and does not make it to American shores, I miss things. And some of the books I’ll be mentioning here (though I won’t know which ones) will have come out years and years ago and did, in fact, make it to the State...

Announcing the Stinetinglers Winner! The Kettle’s Dark Secret by Clara J.

Cast your mind back. Back, I say, to October of 2022 when on this little blog I posted the press release Enter the Stinetinglers Scary Story Writing Contest. The rules were simple. “Budding horror enthusiasts” between the ages of 8-12 were invited to enter a contest that would be judged by, amongst other folks, R.L. Stine himself.

Well, my little horror aficionados, I have wonderful news for you today. I am pleased to not only announce the winner of the contest but to premiere her story r...

Artist Discussions: Beatrice Alemagna, Tomi Ungerer, and Suzy Lee

Three creators walk into a book conference. One of them is Italian, one of them is Korean, one of them is dead.

All right, technically Tomi Ungerer didn’t physically attend this year’s Bologna Children’s Book Festival. But you wouldn’t know that from the sheer levels of fervor that greeted his program that day.

Right now I’m going to cover three very different celebrations of three artists who were celebrated at the fair this year. Each one a star. Each one interesting. And all of them, r...

Bologna Presentations: Worldwide Photography in Children’s Books and An Incredible New Award

I have a confession to make to you. This, as you can see, is the bookstore at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. It offers just the smallest, slightest sample of books on display at the fair:

With this embarrassment of riches, what could I have possibly purchased? So glad you asked! Honestly, I could easily have spent untold gobs of cash, but these were the things that truly stole my heart. The first, a version of The Little Prince illustrated by the incomparable Beatrice Alemagna. The seco...

Books from Bologna: Titles that Will Never Ever Be Published in America

This is one of my favorite posts to write.

The first thing any first time American will notice upon coming to the Bologna Children’s Book Fair is how different the mores and understandings of childhood are throughout the world. What you find acceptable I might find horrific, and vice versa.

Much of my time at the fair is spent going through the picture books on display from other nations, marveling at the sheer variety of them all. Sometimes my eyes will alight on a particular title. I’ll...

Bologna Presentations: Children’s Laureates Worldwide Assemble!

I picture them the same way one might picture the Avengers. In each nation, someone has been given the call to protect children’s literature, whatever the cost. Then, once a year, they are invited to gather in Bologna to talk about their work and deeds.

Yes, it was the program “Children’s Laureates in Conversation”. And provided at the program was a handy dandy little booklet that collected profiles on eleven children’s laureates. Was our own National Ambassador of Young People’s Literatu...

Bologna Presentations: IBBY Doing the Good Work That Needs to Be Done, Worldwide

Americans. We are darned in love with . . . America. Nothing wrong with a bit of national pride but it can be useful not to forget that we are but one nation on this great big shiny blue globe. That’s why I’m rather fond of this Bologna Children’s Book Fair. Offering a chance to experience nations and titles from around the globe, the sheer lack of representation from America (unless you count our properties, which are numerous) is notable. Americans don’t tend to show up in the Original Art...

Bologna Discussion: “This is an effort to push kids back in the closet and they don’t care if they kill themselves there.” Censorship and Book Banning Around the World

This year at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair I identified three major themes that came up many times in the course of the schedule and program:

Ukrainian children’s literatureAI and how it may affect children’s illustrationCensorship

To the latter topic, I was able to attend a very interesting panel entitled “Censorship of Books: what is the state of children’s book banning around the world and what is being done?” The topic itself is interesting, but I was particularly intrigued beca...

Discussion: “This is an effort to push kids back in the closet and they don’t care if they kill themselves there.” Censorship and Book Banning Around the World

This year at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair I identified three major themes that came up many times in the course of the schedule and program:

Ukrainian children’s literatureAI and how it may affect children’s illustrationCensorship

To the latter topic, I was able to attend a very interesting panel entitled “Censorship of Books: what is the state of children’s book banning around the world and what is being done?” The topic itself is interesting, but I was particularly intrigued beca...

Bologna Discussion: Accessibility in Illustrated eBooks, or, America Take Note

NOTE: Just to give you a sense of how the next few days will play out, I’m going to divide my Bologna posts into the following sections: Discussions, Presentations, Exhibits, and Misc.

For today’s post, I was also considering the alternative title: “Stuff I’ve Never Heard American Publishers Discuss Publicly.”

So this was the first discussion I attended at the Bologna Books Fair and its title in particular caught my attention: Accessible Illustrated Books and Where to Find Them. Hosted...