dulemba: The China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair

We finally reach the entire reason for my visit - The China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair!

The Fair in Shanghai was shaped on the model of the Bologna Children's Book Fair. In fact, founders of the Illustrators Survival Corner in Italy, Ivan Canu and Giacomo Benelli, were in Shanghai, where I had the pleasure of talking with them.
The Chinese version of the Book Fair occupied one enormous conference hall space (rather than the several halls that make up the Bologna Book Fair). The space was divided into two sections—the larger section was made up of booths representing various Asian publishers who were there to both represent their houses and their publications, but also to simply sell books to an excited public!

Many attendees arrived with rolling suitcases oftentimes with a built-in seat for their child, because many of the activities of the day were planned around the children. For instance, I loved this print demonstration that I stumbled across.

Beyond a barrier with checkpoints was a completely different experience—this area also had booths representing various publishers from around the world, but was for publishing professionals to make rights deals, attend industry talks (with translator devices available for non-Chinese speakers), or share portfolios. It was also home to the Illustrators Survival Corner, the Masterclass space, Workshop space, and the Official Conference Room (also a space for talks).

Devices were shared for those who didn't speak Chinese to listen in to translators deciphering what was being said. There were also several podcast booths throughout the fair to share the goings on with the larger public.

I attended the first day of the Fair on my own and ended up speaking to several budding illustrators, offering on-the-fly portfolio reviews, and handing out brochures. A highlight was having lunch with Tomi Ungerer’s (creator of the classic UK picture book The Three Robbers) daughter Aria, who handles his estate. We got along famously well.

To honor Tomi, the Fair hosted a drawing wall for illustrators and children to share to their heart's content.

I contributed a reading fairy.

However, it was when Yaxi joined me the following two days that we really hit our stride. Yaxi initiated conversations in Chinese with all of those 100 featured illustrators at their individual tables (it took the better part of two days!).

The Chinese take their education very seriously and many already had MFAs from prestigious universities from around the world. I was feeling very positive about the interest we were receiving and the reach we achieved.
What helped the most though, was meeting Ivan and Giacomo and the manager of the Chinese Illustrators Survival Corner. They really opened up the doors for us to share our brochures and information with budding illustrators. In fact, we even discussed the possibility of me giving portfolio reviews in Italy in April! (Fingers crossed!)

Meanwhile, Shushu joined us on the third day, along with Zoe, a fellow author of an article for the special edition of The Journal of Children’s Literature in Education on Board Books, edited by Clementine Beauvais (54, pages 376–394 (2023)) that just came out (my article is titled "Board Books are for Babies, or Are They? The Art of Board Books and the Question of Intended Audience"). You can read more about that HERE. China seems to be very much about who you know, and once you're in, you're in like flynn; so by the end of day three, I had lined up several more potential lecturing opportunities if I return to the book fair next year. We'll see if this becomes a repeat visit!
Thank you to everyone for putting on such a great book fair!