Coming up! Books Illustrated at Bologna Children's Book Fair: 24th - 27th March

It is that time of year again for the Bologna Children's Book Fair! 

We want to congratulate all of the illustrators and authors whose books have been chosen for this year's 'Hello! from Australia' Exhibition and Display. We'd love you to share the Bologna Rights Catalogue with your networks and via social media to promote and celebrate the high quality of work being produced by Australian creators.

Click on the image below to view the 2014 catalogue on ISSUU where it can be shared and downloaded. ISSUU is a fantastic publications website used all over the world. The 2013 Bologna Rights Catalogue on the APA and ISSUU websites have been viewed over 3000 times! In the lead up to the fair we will be promoting the creators and their work via Books Illustrated's Facebook and Twitter - so stay tuned. Give us your feedback on #HellofromAustralia. 

We'd also like to congratulate Bruce Whatley whose illustrations have been accepted for the 2014 Bologna Illustrators' Exhibition and Illustrators Annual. Bruce said … 'looking at the list of artists exhibited this year, I realised it's a tough one - mainly European of course, but lots of Japanese and Korean too’.

These sample illustrations are from a book called 'Ruben’ which Bruce has written and illustrated, and Bruce has been creating over the past three years. It will be published late 2015 - early 2016 by Scholastic Australia.


Please come and see us if you're at the Bologna Children's Book Fair Hall 26, Stand B80 or follow our travels via Facebook and Twitter.

Ann James & Ann Haddon

On the Road and in the air … first stop China!

Books Illustrated has been on the road, and in the air, for the last few weeks with exhibitions and projects overseas. 

First stop was China.
In Nanjing we were hosted for a week by the very enthusiastic and generous team working at Oriental BabiesPublishing, looking at projects and possible collaborations.


Ann James working with design team at Oriental Babies Publishers. 
In Beijing, starting on Thursday March 3, we installed our ‘Hello! from Australia’ exhibition at the Capital Library and ran a planned program of workshops for children. Over the weekend workshops were attended by the general public, while during the week, they were attended by groups of school students from local and international schools.  This program was planned in conjunction with the Beijing Writer’s Week which this year had a focus on children’s books and publishing. Special guests from Australia invited to take part in the program were author illustrators Anne Spudvilas,  Ambelin Kymullina, Alison Lester and Ann James, along with Children’s Literature academic Pam Macintyre. They took part in an information night forum held at the exhibition.  Another event at the venue which was a major part of the Writer’s Week program this year, was attended by Australian and Chinese publishers. Our week in Beijing was frenetic, and we experienced extreme weather, from thick pollution and smog to an unseasonal dump of snow … which made a visit to the great wall quite special!


Beijing Capital Library workshops with Ann James and Anne Spudvilas.

To be continued in chapters...

Travelling exhibitions

Exhibition in Korea: Hello! from Australia 

We are looking forward to installing the ‘Hello from Australia’ exhibition at the Korea Cultural Foundation Gallery in Seoul on February 11. Leaving tomorrow, it's going to be an exciting trip. 

This is the promotional print exhibition shown at the 2102 Bologna Book Fair. These promotional exhibitions are an initiative of Books Illustrated and the Australian Publishers Association to promote a range of contemporary picture books through an exhibition of specially selected images from these books, presented as giclee digital prints. When invited to take this exhibition to Korea, we added a section onThe Lost Thing by Shaun Tan - from book to film, the DVD being screened as part of this extended exhibition.

During our visit we will  take part in workshops, talks and we'll visit Nami Island – also known in Korea as the Republic of the Imagination - more on this later!

This is the third venue for this exhibition in Korea, and with requests from some regional libraries, it looks like the tour will continue into 2013!