Bologna kids’ fair kicks off
The Bologna Children’s Book Fair opens April 13–16 at BolognaFiere, and this year organizers are beefing up publishing trade programming with BolognaBookPlus and a new Designer Studio focused on art direction and editorial design. (minori.gov.it) (editorialedomani.it). For illustrators, designers and editors, that Designer Studio is a clear signal that visual storytelling and book design are getting renewed industry attention at the fair. (tg24.sky.it)
Bologna’s children’s book fair now runs like three fairs under one roof, with the main fair opening April 13 and running through April 16 at BolognaFiere alongside BolognaBookPlus and the Bologna Licensing Trade Fair for Kids. The 2026 edition is the 63rd, which tells you this is not a pop-up festival but one of publishing’s long-running rights markets. (bolognachildrensbookfair.com) This year’s shift is that the fair is giving more floor space and programming to the parts of publishing that usually sit behind the cover: art direction, editorial graphic design, and illustration for general trade books. The new Designer Studio is built around that idea inside BolognaBookPlus, the fair’s general publishing arm, now in its sixth year. (publishersweekly.com) BolognaBookPlus was created to widen the fair beyond children’s books and bring in the broader book business, from rights to training to cross-market conversations. In 2026, organizers are using that platform to pull designers and writers closer to editors, scouts, and publishers who actually commission books. (giornaledellalibreria.it) The scale is big enough that even small changes in the program say something about the market. Sky TG24 reports about 1,503 exhibitors from 90 countries and regions for 2026, so a new design-focused space is not a side room for hobbyists but a signal aimed at the people who buy, sell, package, and export books. (tg24.sky.it) The fair is also leaning hard into illustration at the same time. The Illustrators Exhibition turns 60 this year, and the official fair site says it remains one of the main places where emerging artists get seen by publishers from multiple countries in a single week. (bolognachildrensbookfair.com) That matters because Bologna has always been a rights fair as much as a cultural event. BolognaFiere describes the 2026 setup as an “integrated system” for international rights exchange across publishing sectors, which means the cover, the page layout, and the visual identity are being treated more like saleable assets, not just decoration added at the end. (bolognafiere.it) The 2026 program is also wider than books on shelves. The official fair materials highlight links to comics, television and film rights, and the video game industry, while the licensing fair brings together children’s brands that can travel across formats. (bolognachildrensbookfair.com) That helps explain why design is getting its own stage now. If a children’s story is going to move from a picture book to a screen adaptation, a game, a merchandise line, or an overseas edition, the first thing buyers often see is the visual world: character shapes, color logic, jacket design, and how clearly the book announces itself in one glance. (indianprinterpublisher.com) There is also a country focus layered into this year’s edition. Norway is the 2026 Guest of Honour, giving the fair a national showcase for children’s publishing and illustration at the same moment Bologna is expanding the conversation around visual storytelling. (bolognachildrensbookfair.com) So the story in Bologna is not just that thousands of publishing people are gathering again from April 13 to April 16. It is that one of the industry’s biggest children’s-book marketplaces is spending 2026 treating design, illustration, and editorial packaging as front-of-house business, not backstage craft. (bolognafiere.it )
