The 2025 Annual Cover Author

Bologna Children's Book Fair hosts every other year the winners of the most prestigious children’s book awards in the arts.

After Paloma Valdivia (Chile),  winner of the Grand Prix of the Biennial of Illustration Bratislava (BIB) in 2023, the 2025 edition of the Fair presents Sydney Smith (Canada), winner of the 2024 Hans Christian Andersen Award.

According to custom, the artist has created the cover for the Illustrators Annual that will accompany the 2025 Illustrators Exhibition and his original works will be presented in the artist’s solo exhibition during the Fair.

Sydney Smith is the award-winning author and illustrator of Small in the City and Do you Remember? as well as the illustrator of I Talk Like a River by Jordan Scott, Town Is by the Sea by Joanne Schwartz, Sidewalk Flowers by JonArno Lawson among others. Sydney has received multiple awards including New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Books Awards, two Carnegie Illustration Awards and in 2024 received the Hans Christian Andersen Award, internationally recognizing his contribution to books for children. Sydney currently lives by the sea in Nova Scotia, Canada with his wife and children.

The cover will be revealed soon, while the Annual will be on pre-order starting a few weeks before Bologna Children's Book Fair 2025.

(Picture by © Steve Farmer)