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 loved the story too.

Catching up with Antoinette Correa from B.L.D. – Bibliothèque Lecture Développement (Senegal)

and Pilli Hamidu Dumea of the Children’s Book Project for Tanzania.

Meeting author/illustrator/stroyteller John Kilaka, an erstwhile winner of the BolognaRagazzi New Horizons Award (for New Friends in 2005), and seeing his new book, The Amazing Tree.

…And of course, the books…

A display of Mitsumasa Anno’s books at Fukuinkan Shoten Publishers‘ stand, including his new Anno’s Journey across Asia – and if you look at the first photograph for this post you should be able to spot it among the White Ravens 2010 selection too…

A display devoted to Jimmy Liao’s books – what a feast of color and imagination they are. Wouldn’t it be great to have more of his books available in English!

And the much-loved Guji Guji by Chih-Yuan Chen in lots of different languages – interesting, also, to see the different illustrations chosen for the covers.

You can see these and more photos from Day 3 here…

Well, the Bologna Book Fair has been and gone for another year and once again it passed in a whirlwind of activity. Between an action-packed schedule and internet connection frustrations, we didn’t manage to post quite as often during the Fair as we had hoped, but now we’re back at our desks, we will be presenting various highlights over the coming weeks. So here are some special moments from the first day:

“A Morning of Korean Picture Books Showcasing Family.” The photo shows picture-book writer/illustrator Cho Hae-ran’s brushes and paints, and some of the exquisite little books produced by children she has worked with. I’ll be writing about this whole session properly soon…

The announcements of IBBY’s Awards – see Corinne’s post…

A Q&A session with Shaun Tan and publishing consultant Helen Chamberlain in the illustrators’ café – we’ll definitely have more about that soon too.

The opening of the Poemas de Compañía exhibition, featuring Isol’s illustrations for Pantuflas de perrito, poems by Jorge Luján about pets, based on some workshops he did with children. It was great to see Jorge and a delight to meet Mandana Sadat, illustrator of another of Jorge’s books, Winter Afternoon, a favorite of mine, as well as Jorge’s Spanish and Italian publishers – not to mention the Principessa dei Gelati!

You can see more photos from Day 1 here.