Bologna Children’s Book Fair, international book fair for children and teenagers, is back with a full calendar of initiatives kicking off today, 21 March, in the halls of BolognaFiere. The event programme includes meetings, conferences, exhibitions and many other events, which will continue until 24 March.

The guest of honour for this year's edition is Sharjah, Unesco World Book Capital 2019-2020.

The event is complemented by BolognaBookPlus, the inaugural Bologna Children's Book Fair's new trade fair outreach to mainstream publishers and developed with the aim of expanding the scope of the fair by addressing a wider professional audience in the global publishing industry.

Among the highlights of Bologna Children's Book Fair 2022 is the Comics Corner, a new space dedicated to international publishers of graphic novels, both specialised and non-specialised.

Worthy of note in the calendar of meetings: the conference Children on the edge: reading projects in vulnerable contexts (22 March), a reflection on the promotion of reading in the most "difficult" areas, where many children do not have access to books; the International Conference of Independent Children's Bookshops, with a focus entirely dedicated to the global comics market (23 March, online); the Comics and schools: national and international strategies and experiences event (24 March).

The event also includes many prizes: These include the BOP - Bologna Prize for the Best Children's Publisher of the Year, an award for the best publishing houses of the year; the Bologna Ragazzi Award, with the special 2022 category dedicated to Poetry; the Strega Prize Girls and Boys, which will award the winning book in the new narration by images competition category, dedicated to graphic novels, comics, illustrated books and wordless books aimed at readers aged between 6 and 13; the Poesio Prize, for the most innovative and original Italian degree thesis in children's literature.

The complete programme of all events is available on the fair website, on the dedicated page.

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