Bologna honors Rosen and Cai Gao
On April 13 at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, the Hans Christian Andersen Awards went to Michael Rosen and Cai Gao, announced on the fair’s opening day (publishersweekly.com). The fair also handed out the BOP prizes that same day in Palazzo Re Enzo in Piazza Maggiore (publishersweekly.com).
Michael Rosen and Cai Gao were honored at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair on April 13 with the 2026 Hans Christian Andersen Awards, one of children’s publishing’s top international prizes. (ibby.org) The International Board on Books for Young People, known as IBBY, gives the award every other year to one writer and one illustrator for lifetime achievement. This year’s winners were announced at the fair’s opening-day press conference in Bologna. (ibby.org) Rosen won for writing after a career that has produced more than 200 books, including *We’re Going on a Bear Hunt* and *Michael Rosen’s Sad Book*. Publishers Weekly said he has spent more than 50 years as a poet, author, educator, literacy advocate, and former United Kingdom Children’s Laureate. (publishersweekly.com) Cai Gao won for illustration, representing China. IBBY said her work joins “technical mastery” with “creativity, sensitivity and innovation,” and described her pictures as moving between tradition and modernity. (ibby.org) The award is judged on a creator’s whole body of work, not a single title. IBBY said 78 candidates from 44 countries were nominated for the 2026 edition before the field was cut to six writers and six illustrators. (ibby.org) That scale helps explain why the announcement carries weight beyond one fair week in Italy. The Hans Christian Andersen Awards are often treated as a global measure of which authors and artists have shaped children’s literature across languages, markets, and generations. (thebookseller.com) The Bologna fair tied those honors to a broader set of industry prizes the same day at Palazzo Re Enzo in Piazza Maggiore. The Bologna Prize for the Best Children’s Publishers of the Year, known as the BOP prize, recognized one publisher in each of six world regions. (publishingperspectives.com) The 2026 BOP winners were Saaraba Éditions of Senegal for Africa, Bronze Publishing of Japan for Asia, Éditions La Doux of France for Europe, Lecturita Ediciones of Argentina for Central and South America and the Caribbean, Tundra Books of Canada for North America, and Messy Press of New Zealand for Oceania. (bolognachildrensbookfair.com) Bologna’s fair runs April 13 to 16 this year, its 62nd edition, and the opening-day awards put individual creators and publishing houses on the same stage. Rosen and Cai Gao leave that stage with the fair’s most visible international literary honor. (publishersweekly.com)
