Children's books

This month marks 15 years since "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" made Kinney one of the world's most popular writers. I spoke to him about his start in children's literature and the mark he's left.  Read more

For nearly two decades, I have been speaking about the ways adult gatekeepers encourage girls to read books about boys but discourage, prevent, or even shame boys from reading about girls. A couple of years ago, a helpful industry professional let me know that gendered reading wasn't an issue anymore. "We've moved past that, you don't need to keep talking about it."

The Bologna Children's Book FairThe Bologna Children's Book Fair or La fiera del libro per ragazzi is the leading professional fair for children's books in the world. will run March 21-24 in its usual venue at the BolognaFiere exhibition center in Bologna, Italy. It will be the first time since 2019 that the fair will be held in person. Organizers say they've booked 950 exhibitors, down from 1,200 in 2018 and 2019. Sixty American companies, primarily small and medium publishing houses, will attend.  Read more

The China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair (CCBF), originally scheduled to start on November 19, has been postponed to next year and is scheduled to run from March 20 to 22. This is the latest development from China's strict zero-Covid policy even though the average number of new cases in the past few days was well below 100.

Good children's literature is a serious business. Not serious as in boring or "improving", but serious in attention and ambition, serious about beauty and wonder, about engaging the brain but also the heart, about sadness and difficulty, but also about silliness and joy. Above all, it is serious about the legitimacy of a child's world - which is a world away from being child-ish.