It was an honour and a privilege for Dee to be invited to represent The Bookery and join the BolognaRagazzi Award Jury last month, to spend time with passionate book advocates from across the world and make some tricky decisions about the very best 2023 submissions.

A total of 2,349 titles were submitted by 644 publishers from 59 countries and regions around the world with books from Bangladesh, Cyprus, Macedonia, Malaysia, Puerto Rico and Venezuela arriving on the tables for the first time.

The awards honour the best productions in terms of their graphic and editorial qualities, innovation and the ability to talk to young readers.

There are four main Award categories: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Opera Prima (for unpublished authors and illustrators), and Comics. The jury is also asked to give a special New Horizons award to a particularly innovative book. Besides the main permanent categories, every year BRAW features also one or more special categories. The special category of the 2023 BolognaRagazzi Award was dedicated to PHOTOGRAPHY.

The Bologna Children’s Book Fair first opened its doors in 1964. Down the years it has become widely recognised as the key international event to get a first-hand understanding of ongoing experimentation that will drive future developments in children’s book publishing.

The BolognaRagazzi Award is presented to the publisher and is intended to bring the book to the attention of many more because of the recognition it will receive at Bologna Children’s Book Fair. You can read more about the criteria here.