Date: 06 March 2025 Page: 9
Move over, Gruffalo: these are the world’s best picture books Lucy Bannerman goes behind the scenes at the children’s book Olympics and finds UK publishers are lagging behind
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House of Wisdom by Bodour Al H ow do you pick the world’s Cambridge School of Art who Q Qasimi and Majid Zakeri Younesi designed the renowned MA course best picture book? Is it the ((United Arab Emirates) in children’s book illustration, calls most beautiful? The most A cautionary tale about the House of them “the Turkey Twizzlers” of the groundbreaking? Perhaps W Wisdom, the royal library in Baghdad picture book world, “pandering to it’s the one that is still that was a centre of learning during th the lowest levels of aesthetic taste”. requested every bedtime, even though th the Islamic golden age. When it was These days, the retail space for it has been read a thousand times? ssacked by the Mongols, legend has it experimental books is vanishingly For two days every year, an th so many precious books were that international jury gather in the Italian small. UK publishers are thrown into the Tigris River, the water tth city of Bologna to grapple with these unapologetic about publishing massrran black with ink. questions as they decide the winners appeal crowd-pleasers. Bringing in books from abroad also means of one of the most prestigious prizes in Special mention S translation costs. But does it mean global children’s publishing, the Heatwave by Lauren Redniss (United H that British customers are missing BolognaRagazzi awards. Think of it SStates) out on the weird, wonderful like the picture book Olympics. T The words tell a simple story about a projects from the rest of the world? Almost 4,000 books, from almost 70 b boy enduring a hot day on the beach. My peek behind the scenes countries from Argentina to Vietnam, T The pictures scream a very different would certainly suggest so. At the are up for consideration. sstory about rising temperatures The five best will be celebrated at an Salaborsa, a fabulous public library aacross the planet. Colour does the located on Bologna’s main square, awards ceremony at the end of March, h heavy lifting here, with every page in thousands of books are laid out kick-starting the Bologna Children’s ala a alarm-bell red, and the smallest splash across long tables. I’m struck by Book Fair, where publishers, film and o of blue rain at the end. television executives hustle and hunt how avant-garde many of them for the next beloved character to turn are. And how dark. There’s a IIngen utom jag (Nobody but Me) by Spanish book about dictatorship, into a global brand. SSara Lundberg (Sweden) which shows faceless Playmobil So where does the UK — the This almost wordless picture book country of Quentin Blake, Raymond figures playing hide and seek during a T f follows a young boy who is playing on conflict. “F***ing war”, says the text. Briggs, Jan Pienkowski and Shirley tthe river with his mother. While she There’s another (American nonHughes — fit in? Despite our grand chats, he floats off on his inflatable fiction) story about the Salem witch tradition of children’s literature, the trials that just happens to fall open at a ring and is swept into a magical, word in Bologna is that British summery world of make-believe. page showing three women hanging publishers have gained an from nooses. Gangsta Granny it is not. international reputation as safe, Boucle d’or en chemin (Let’s Go, corporate, risk-averse and — dare I Are there any topics that are out of Goldilocks!) by Caroline Gamon say it — boring, especially at the bounds, I ask Marcella Terrusi, the (France) picture book end of the market. chair of the judges. “Life is This retelling of Goldilocks has playful Consider the fact that one single controversial. Life is inappropriate. cut-out spaces, and pays homage to author makes up about 25 per cent Grown-ups are inappropriate,” she the art of cut-paper silhouettes. Peer of our whole market. (Yes, it’s Julia says. “A picture book is a safe place through the keyhole and you’ll see the Donaldson.) Browse the shelves of where children know that they can any supermarket or chain bookstore, meet the world, but they can survive. faces of three shocked bears. and you’ll find a shrinking range of They are also places where long-established classics (The Very conversation c starts, so they are great Hungry Caterpillar; Dear Zoo) and allies for grown-ups.” a big-brand spinoffs. Martin Salisbury, professor of illustration at the The Bologna Ragazzi winner T H
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