2024 is the year of the 61st edition of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair (BCBF), the Fair that is meeting place for the worldwide children’s book community to trade in copyrights, an active hub promoting debate on the present and future of publishing and stimulating the birth of new ideas.
BCBF is taking place at BolognaFiere from 8 to 11 April 2024 together with its “sister” events BolognaBookPlus (BBPlus), the extension dedicated to generalist publishing produced in collaboration with the Italian Publishers Association (AIE), and Bologna Licensing Trade Fair/Kids (BLTF/K), specifically for brands and the licensing of content for children and young people.
After the festive edition of 2023 celebrating 60 years of BCBF, the halls of the BolognaFiere Exhibition Centre hosts a new edition this year featuring an expected 1,500 exhibitors from approximately 100 countries and regions of the world together with new initiatives providing in-depth analysis and support for the global publishing industry made possible thanks to the support of ITA-the Italian Trade Agency and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI).
Also marking an edition filled with new stimuli and looking keenly to the future is the admission of Bologna Children’s Book Fair as a Patron Member of the International Publishers Association (IPA), the largest worldwide federation of national, regional, and specialist publishers’ associations, based in Geneva and founded in 1896 in Paris to promote and defend copyright and publishing freedom. BCBF’s admission to the IPA marks a further step forward for the Fair, bringing it even closer to publishers from all over the world and more capable of picking up on, and responding to, their needs.
Elena Pasoli, Director of Bologna Children’s Book Fair, states: Becoming a patron member of the IPA – “International Publishers Association – represents for us an important recognition of the work we have been doing for over sixty years in the service of the international children’s publishing community and, for the past four years, with BolognaBookPlus, of general publishing. A service that is first and foremost valuable dialogue and debate, alongside the sharing of those fundamental principles related to copyright protection and freedom of publication. As a book fair – across the trade publishing spectrum – being part of the IPA will be an additional stimulus for us to collaborate and participate actively and constructively in the debate around the great challenges facing the publishing industry at such a complex historical moment as this.”
