Now in its sixth year, BolognaBookPlus, the Bologna Children’s Book Fair’s general trade publishing initiative run in collaboration with the Italian Publishers Association, continues to grow and is offering its most ambitious program yet. The 2026 event includes two new professional tracks, an expanded AI Summit, and a pair of exhibitions making their European debuts.
Headlining the new additions is the Designer Studio, a slate of events dedicated to art direction, editorial design, and illustration for adults, intended to foster dialogue between visual designers and artists and the general trade market. Programming is curated by Mimaster Illustrazione, the organization behind BCBF’s popular Illustrators Survival Corner. In this inaugural edition, the focus will be on book cover design, with master classes and hands-on workshops where designers and illustrators develop actual covers.
“In a digital age, how books look online and how they’re designed becomes so much more important,” says Jacks Thomas, guest director of BBPlus. “This is the one book fair where you can be certain that illustration is right at the heart of everything.”
The Designer Studio’s speaker list includes illustrators Pablo Amargo, Jon Gray, Lorenzo Mattotti, and Riccardo Vecchio, along with art directors and graphic designers DJ Stout of Pentagram and Cecilia Flegenheimer of Mondadori. The space will also display the gold and silver medalists from the Society of Illustrators’ Annual Illustration Competition in the book category for 2022–2026. In addition, there will be a preview of Balbusso Twins: Illustrating with Two Souls, a show curated by the Society of Illustrators in collaboration with Pentagram and opening in New York City on April 15.
Also new this year is WritersLab, which will give writers—across fiction, nonfiction, children’s, and professional publishing—a dedicated area to network, talk shop, and share best practices. A series of workshops will look at such subjects as marketing, career development, and how to handle rights.
The second edition of the BBPlus AI Summit will take place the morning of Tuesday, April 14. The half-day program opens with a keynote from Shimmr AI founder Nadim Sadek on AI as a new creative medium, before moving into sessions on agentic publishing workflows and data-driven editorial decision making. Regina Brooks, CEO of Serendipity Literary Agency and president of the Association of American Literary Agents, and Rafał Kosik, the BBPlus author ambassador, will discuss control, compensation, and creative rights in the AI era. The summit will close with two conversations about leadership in the age of AI, featuring Paul Kelly, CEO of DK, and Mary McAveney, president and CEO of Abrams Books.
“AI is no longer just a tool for efficiency, but a new medium for creativity and decision-making,” says summit curator Brooke Dobson of Shimmr AI. “This year’s summit explores the real-world impact of that shift.”
Kosik is a natural fit as author ambassador. The Polish publisher and international bestselling science-fiction writer has more than 30 books to his name, including the young adult series Felix, Net and Nika, as well as the children’s series Amelia and Kuba. He also wrote the script for the anime Cyberpunk 2077: Edgerunners. Kosik will appear throughout the BBPlus program, with AI and the evolving author-technology relationship as running themes. Additionally, Norwegian illustrator Mari Kanstad Johnsen will serve as BBPlus’s illustration ambassador and will host talks and workshops throughout the fair.
Other returning highlights include the Audio Forum, curated by Book Beat’s Nathan Hull, on Wednesday, April 15, at the BBPlus Theatre, with speakers from Audible, Gallimard, Pan Macmillan, and Spotify examining how technology and commerce are reshaping audio storytelling. Not to be forgotten, the rights training course How to Sell Rights and Understand Licensing in Children’s Publishing returns on Sunday, April 12, the day before the fair opens. “As far as we know, it is the only such training program offered at any major international book fair,” Thomas says.
