Bologna: 2024 Best Children’s Publishers of the Year

In Feature Articles by Porter Anderson

Six winners are named in the 2024 edition of the Bologna Prize for the Best Children’s Publishers of the Year.

Winners of the 2024 Bologna Prize for Best Children’s Publishers of the Year onstage at the April 8 prize ceremony. Bologna director Elena Pasoli, left, and Bologna Book Plus director Jacks Thomas, right, are at the center. Image: BCBF

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

The 12th Edition of These Awards
On Monday night here at  Bologna Children’s Book Fair, the honors most hoped for by publishers were announced: the Bologna Prizes for the Best Children’s Publishers of the Year.

This set of awards was created about a decade ago in cooperation with the Association of Italian Publishers (Associazione Italiana Editori) and is handed out in six geographically defined regions of the world:

  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Europe
  • North America
  • The Caribbean, Central and South America
  • Oceania

In an interesting feature, the jury for this award is the world’s publishers.

They vote for their sister houses that have been standouts in various developments of innovation, creativity, and “the quality of their editorial choices”—an intriguing criterion in itself, considering the vast range of topical content and debate now embraced by the industry serving younger readers.

The period for registering votes ended on March 20. And on Monday, the winner from each geographical shortlist (listed below) was announced:

Bologna Prize: Best Children’s Publishers of the Year
2024 Winners

Africa

The 2024 African winner is Yanbow Al Kitab, from Morocco: Yanbow Al Kitab is a Moroccan children’s publishing house founded in 2006 by Amina Hachimi Alaoui. It publishes books with a Moroccan/Arabic cultural focus in French, Arabic and English. After co-founding Le Carrefour des Livres bookshop in Casablanca’s Maarif district with Marie-Louise Belarbi in 1984, and Morocco’s first specialist art bookshop,

Asia

Poplar Publishing Co., Ltd., from Japan, wins the prize for Asia. /this leading independent publisher of children’s books has been in business for more than 70 years. As it started as a children’s books publisher, it has always tried to provide children with enjoyable and exciting books. Today, the company’s goals remain unchanged: everything it publishes should be enjoyable and enrich people’s lives.

Europe

For Europe, the winner is the Spanish Mosquito Books Barcelona, a small publishing house specialising in non-fiction picture books. It introduces itself by saying: “All production is our own. Our obsession is to discover talent and make it known to the world. Our goal is to spread knowledge through beauty. Our first book was published in 2016, and to date we publish 20 titles a year, with co-editions in more than 10 languages. We take our creativity to more than 30 countries.”

North America

The North American winner is Canadian Greystone Kids, from Greystone Books, a leading independent publisher of books about nature, science, health, and social issues, with a commitment in reducing environmental footprint in their production and supply chain. Founded in Vancouver in 1993 and named after the grey stone commonly used in heritage architecture in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, it publishes books that show readers how we can respect, protect, and care for the species we share this planet with. Greystone Kids launched in 2019.

Caribbean and Latin America

In Central and South America and Caribbean, Cataplum Libros (Colombia) wins the BOP.  To create good books, Cataplum digs in the collective memory and explores the roots that connect Latin Americans; it recovers the oral tradition, the game and its diverse and inexhaustible possibilities; it looks for texts by authors of yesterday and today; it tracks down illustrators with new proposals and makes the effort to see how text and image can coexist harmoniously. Its catalogue, it says, is conceived as a living creature: “Good books are like tame animals that wake up when we caress their backs and show us their bellies to invite us to play, but do not hesitate to give us a good bite to get us out of the clutches of everyday life”.

Oceania

For Oceania, the winner is Huia Publishers, from New Zealand. Huia Publishers is a Māori owned, independent publisher producing innovative and inspiring books and resources. “Since 1991” they say “our purpose has been simple and uncompromising – we share stories that resonate with our people, that reflect our experiences and that value our culture and language.”

And we’ll repeat below for you the shortlists for these high-visibility awards.

Bologna Prize: Best Children’s Publishers of the Year
2024 Shortlists

Africa

Asia

Europe 

Caribbean and Latin America

North America

Oceania

Follow Publishing Perspectives for updating news from the 61st Bologna Children’s Book Fair.

More of our coverage relative to the 2024 Bologna Children’s Book Fair

More on Bologna Children’s Book Fair is here, more from us on children’s books is here, more on publishing and book awards is here, and more on world publishing’s trade shows and book fairs is here. 

 

About the Author

Porter Anderson

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Porter Anderson has been named International Trade Press Journalist of the Year in London Book Fair's International Excellence Awards. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives. He formerly was Associate Editor for The FutureBook at London's The Bookseller. Anderson was for more than a decade a senior producer and anchor with CNN.com, CNN International, and CNN USA. As an arts critic (Fellow, National Critics Institute), he was with The Village Voice, the Dallas Times Herald, and the Tampa Tribune, now the Tampa Bay Times. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman.