BCBF in the city

As is the case every year, the energy, creativity, ideas and content that converge at Bologna Children’s Book Fair are sure to overflow from the exhibition halls, surging into cultural venues, libraries, schools and buildings in the city of Bologna in a genuine festival spread across the city: a rich and diverse range of exhibitions, meetings and initiatives for the general public of adults and children.

BOOM! - Crescere nei libri (BOOM! - Growing up in books) is the title of the programme of initiatives in the city, promoted by the Municipal council of Bologna and BolognaFiere, organised by the Libraries and Cultural Welfare Department together with Hamelin Cultural Association as part of the Bologna Reading Pact, and sponsored by IBBY - International Board on Books for Young People Italy. More than 40 exhibitions, 150 events among workshops and meetings, and 100+ artists are expected to take part. Scheduled events include a site-specific exhibition by the great illustrator Paul Cox, in collaboration with BCBF: the fruit of a week-long residency the artist spent at Palazzo Paltroni, exhibition space and headquarters of the Fondazione del Monte. The exhibition will feature a huge continuous painting, 75 metres long, that will cover the entire space.

At the Testoni Ragazzi Theatre, Little Design. Katsumi Komagata is an exhibition of eight illustrations created by the great illustrator Katsumi Komagata on the theme of early childhood responses in the context of the performing arts. Little Design. Curated by La Baracca – Testoni Ragazzi, Bologna Children’s Book Fair and ONE STROKE, is a tribute to a master of contemporary illustration and an invitation to continue investigating the aesthetic experience in early childhood, emphasising the importance of international artistic cooperation as a tool of cultural policy.

Finally, the second edition of OFF FAIR, organised by Accademia Drosselmeier, is a programme that, beginning in Bologna and taking place throughout the year, brings the wealth of books that inhabit the fair to various cities in Italy and all over the world, transforming them into a collective heritage. The project involves national and international libraries, museums and schools, which, thanks to donations of books from the fair’s archive can expand the scope of their own collections: Florence will host silent books; Sesto Fiorentino will experience the most beautiful books from China; in Scandicci the focus will be on women; comics in Bergamo and at the Comics Museum in Pordenone; in Subiaco, Capital of Books 2025, books that talk about books; in Milan, at the Museum of Science and Technology, popular science books; in Vilnius and Taiwan, a rich selection of the most popular illustrated books at BCBF. 

BOOM!