Bologna kids’ fair line-up

A children’s book fair in Bologna is doubling as a career fair this year: one Milan illustration school is curating a new design program inside the trade event, and the fair’s biggest illustration platform now comes with a route that can carry winners from Italy to Shanghai in the same year. (bolognachildrensbookfair.com) (emiliaromagnanews24.it) The dates are April 13 to April 16, 2026, and the setting is the 63rd Bologna Children’s Book Fair at BolognaFiere, where BolognaBookPlus and the Bologna Licensing Trade Fair for Kids run at the same time. The organizers say the combined event brings together rights trading, illustration, licensing, and audiovisual business in one place. (bolognachildrensbookfair.com) That matters because Bologna is not a public book festival first. It is a professional marketplace, with more than 1,500 exhibitors from 90 countries expected in 2026, which means illustrators are walking into a room built for deals, not just applause. (gruppomondadori.it) (publishersweekly.com) The new piece this year is Designer Studio at BolognaBookPlus, a first-edition program curated by Mimaster Illustrazione for art direction, editorial graphics, and illustration outside children’s publishing. BolognaBookPlus says its side of the fair is aimed at general trade adult publishing, so the studio widens the usual children’s-book lane into the broader commercial book market. (emiliaromagnanews24.it) (bolognachildrensbookfair.com) Mimaster is not showing up as a random guest. Fondazione Mondadori says Mimaster is already a Bologna Children’s Book Fair partner and uses fairs to run “The Illustrators Survival Corner,” a format built around the practical side of the job. (fondazionemondadori.it) The first Designer Studio theme is the book cover, treated not as decoration but as sales packaging. The program includes “Jackets Off!,” an exhibition tied to Agatha Christie covers and illustrator Ferenc Pintér, plus a talk on April 14 with Mondadori art director Cecilia Flegenheimer and Mimaster director Ivan Canu about how Christie’s visual identity changes across countries and publishers. (emiliaromagnanews24.it) There is also a pipeline hidden inside the fair’s older institutions. The Illustrators Exhibition, founded in 1967, selected 75 illustration sets for 2026 after judging 317 finalist submissions, drawn from 4,158 illustrators who sent 20,790 works from 94 countries and regions. (bolognachildrensbookfair.com) Winning in Bologna does not end in Bologna. The fair says the exhibition is published in an annual catalog in Italian, English, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, then sent on a two-year international tour that includes Japan, Korea, China, and other destinations. (bolognachildrensbookfair.com) The China link is especially concrete in 2026 because the organizers list the China Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair for November 13 to 15, 2026, and Bologna Children’s Book Fair says that event is co-organized by BolognaFiere and Bologna Children’s Book Fair. For an illustrator or small publisher, that turns “international exposure” into an actual next stop on the calendar. (bolognachildrensbookfair.com) So the story in Bologna is not just that Fondazione Mondadori and Mimaster Illustrazione will be present from April 13 to 16. It is that one of Europe’s biggest rights markets is adding a new design floor while its best-known illustration showcase still feeds a touring system that reaches Asia, giving artists a path from portfolio review to foreign fair without leaving the same institutional orbit. (emiliaromagnanews24.it) (bolognachildrensbookfair.com 1) (bolognachildrensbookfair.com 2)