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Our  bags are packed and in a few hours both Marjorie and I will be flying to Italy to attend the  2012 Bologna Children’s Book Fair!  As we all know, the Bologna Children’s Book Fair is the most important international event dedicated to children’s publishing. 2012 marks the 49^th edition of the fair and will take place March 19th – 22nd.  Over 20,000 square meters of exhibition space have been booked,  over 1,200 exhibitors from over 66 countries are confirmed, and  a jam-packed programme of events has been released. A small sampling of the highlights:

The 2012 Guest of Honor at the Illustrators Exhibition will be Portugal. Portugal will present an exhibit entitled Como as cerejas (Like cherries), a selection of works by well established illustrators for children’s books as well as works by young artists presenting the finest in contemporary Portuguese illustration.

The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award announcement will be broadcast live to Bologna from Sweden on March 20th. This is the 10th anniversary of  ALMA and is especially exciting for us as  PaperTigers is a nominating body for the award.

Bologna Children’s Book Fair – SM Foundation International Award for Illustration. This winner of this  award, reserved to young illustrators (under 35) selected for the 2012 Illustrators Exhibition, will be announced on March 21.

Illustrators Exhibition. Once again, a wealth of works by illustrators (well-known professionals and emerging talents) will  be on display. The 2012 international jury has selected 72 illustrators from 2,685 participants and 360 illustrations will be exhibited.

BolognaRagazzi Awards. This initative rewards the best books in terms of graphic and editorial design and this year, along wit

After a busy day of presentations on Day 2, Day 3 of the Bologna Book Fair was spent meeting people and absorbing the different books on offer.

First up was a lovely chat with poet Jorge Luján, whom we’d caught up with on the Tuesday evening… He shared his brand new book with us and I will share some photos with you when I work out how to get them off the camera (as opposed to a storage disc)… but in the meantime, enjoy this gorgeous poster for the exhibition of Isol’s illustrations from his recently published Pantuflas de perrito which is on-going until 25th April, if you happen to be in Bologna…

Other highlights included:

The presentation of the International Youth Library’s newly announced 2010 White Ravens Catalogue:

I had a great discussion with Janet Evans from Liverpool Hope University, UK, who is currently spending some time with the Library in Munich

while…

next door at the IBBY stand, Corinne and Aline had a good chat with Sylvia Vardell, editor of IBBY magazine Bookbird and host of the wonderful Poetry for Children blog (Don’t miss out on her current game of Poetry Tag for National Poetry Month in the US).

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Meeting Danilla Marii, an Australian writer based in Rome, who had come to the Fair to seek out a publisher for her beautiful and vibrant book The Rainbow Tree – it was a real privilege to be able to see the original draft that includes some intricate collage work. We lo

I had heard of the book The Night Life of Trees, by Chennai-based Tara Publishing, and the fact that it had won the Bologna Ragazzi “New Horizons” Award (the first title from India to do so) before going to the Bologna Book Fair. The award spotlights the cultural heritage and innovative drive coming from children’s book publishing in the Arab world, Latin America, Asia and Africa, so I knew the book was bound to be a treat. But nothing could have prepared me for the jolt I experienced when I finally saw it.

When you flip through the book’s pages you understand why it has won a prestigious children’s book award even though it was originally created as an art book. The book rekindles one’s sense of wonder. Everything about it invites closer inspection: the wonderful ink smell; the texture of the handmade paper; the intricacy of the majestic trees inhabited by creatures; the myths and folktales accompanying them…

Tara Publishing’s website states that their books are “largely visual in nature – and radical, witty and informed in spirit.” The Night Life of Trees is, no doubt, one such book. Silk-screened and hand-bound, with its luminous trees jumping out of the pages’ black backdrop, this book offers a glimpse into the world views of three of the finest artists from the Gond tribe of Madhya Pradesh, in Central India, namely, Ram Singh Urveti, Durga Bai and Bhajju Shyam.

The idea for the book, we learned from a presentation given by Tara founder Gita Wolf and editor Sirish Rao on the first day of the book fair, came out of one of Tara’s illustrators’ workshops. Participants from the Gond tribe kept including trees on every single one of their drawings. “When asked to draw a bird, they would draw a bird on a tree; when asked to draw a person, they would draw a person next to a tree; when asked to draw clouds, they would draw clouds over a tree, and so on,” (more…)

The Ghost in Allie's Pool
by Sari Bodi

Allie doesn't even know her best friend Marissa anymore. Marissa has started hanging out with the popular girls, and she's become obsessed with being cool. Allie isn't cool enough for her anymore. Marissa and her new friends Crystal and Suzanne ditch Allie when they can, and when they can't, they're just mean to her.

Allie is badly in need of a friend when, in the middle of researching a paper for school about her Pilgrim ancestors, Allie meets the ghost of a Pilgrim named Dorothy May. Dorothy May isn't one of Allie's ancestors, but in a way Allie wouldn't exist if it weren't for Dorothy May: Dorothy May killed herself by jumping off of the Mayflower, and her widowed husband remarried, becoming Allie's ancestor. As Allie navigates the perilous waters of middle school, Dorothy May appears when needed and becomes a friend to Allie, helping her deal with her feelings of betrayal, fear, loneliness, and attraction for one of the boys in her class, and helping her to find the courage to stand up to the bullies. Allie, in turn, helps Dorothy May to work through the issues that she was unable to deal with in life.

The Ghost in Allie's Pool is an engaging story with realistic teen characters that ring true. It has a little bit of something for everyone: a little fantasy, a little middle-school realism, and a little bit of history. I don't have a lot of experience with middle school today, but the characters and situations seem believable. The bullying - including cyber-bullying -is shocking but not over the top, and is handled sensitively. Tweens in middle-school will find this an entertaining and relevant story. An author's note at the end explains what's real in the story of the Mayflower Pilgrims.

As a homeschooling parent, it's hard for me to believe that this kind of bullying can happen in school, yet from stories that I've heard, it does. One thing that The Ghost in Allie's Pool really brought out for me is that victims of bullying may not feel that they can go to an adult for help, and may, in fact, go to great lengths to protect their tormentors. It's up to the adults in their lives then - parents and teachers - to be aware of what's going on and to protect the children. No child should have to suffer this kind of thing.

Andrew Smith, editor of the Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink has written a piece for us which helps us truly understand the origins of Thanksgiving. Despite its solemn origins we hope you have a truly wonderful (and apple pie filled) holiday.

Every American knows the story of the First Thanksgiving: Seeking religious freedom, the Pilgrims established a colony at Plymouth, Massachusetts. Native Americans taught them how to plant corn and hunt. When the crops were harvested, the Indians joined the Pilgrims at the First Thanksgiving by jointly gobbling up turkeys, saucing cranberries, mashing corn, and squashing pumpkins to make pies. It was such a memorable event that Americans have honored this day ever since, or so goes the story.

No one would be more surprised at this modern day story than would the Pilgrims. (more…)

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