The Bologna Children's Book Fair, which will be held this year from March 6 to 9, is approaching. Next year, Slovenia will be the fair's guest of honour. The Slovenian Book Agency (JAK) will be present at the fair with an 80 m2 national stand in Hall 29 (Stand C26-D25).

In addition to the presentation of the latest book production, the stand will feature four workstations of Slovenian publishers (Malinc Publishing House, Miš Publishing House, Pivec Publishing House, Sodobnost International). Mladinska knjiga Publishing House and Morfem Publishing House will have their own stands at the fair.

On Tuesday, March 7, at 11:30 a.m., the Slovenian Book Agency will host a B2B meeting of Slovenian and foreign publishers, which will be attended by 25 Slovenian and foreign publishers, editors and agents.

Several events will be held at the fair, presenting Slovenian authors and experts in the field of books.

On Tuesday, March 7, 2023, at 12:45 p.m., in a broadcast from Stockholm, the recipient of the ALMA award will be announced. Four Slovenian authors and illustrators are nominated for the prize: Ana Zavadlav, Miroslav Košuta, Huiqin Wang and Andrej Rozman Roza.

On the same day at 2:00 p.m., Tina Bilban, president of IBBY Slovenia, will give a presentation on best practices in the distribution of books and literature as part of Leggimondo 2023.

The event Let’s Talk About Slovenia: Guest of Honour at BCBF 2024 will take place on Wednesday, March 8, at 6 p.m. The event will highlight some of the topics that will be presented during next year's Slovenia Guest of Honour a presentation. It will be moderated by the acting director of the Slovenian Book Agency, Katja Stergar. She will be joined by author, editor and translator Jana Bauer (Sodobnost International), editor-in-chief Alenka Kepic Mohar PhD (Mladinska knjiga) and the exhibition manager of the Bologna Children's Book Fair, Elena Pasoli.

On Thursday, March 9, at 11:45 a.m., as part of the IBBY Regional Conference, Nika Kovač will present the Etc. (Itn.) Festival of Engaged Writing.

For illustrators, the most important event at the fair is the annual curated Illustrators exhibition, for which there are always thousands of proposals and from which only about 70 illustrators from around the world are selected. This year, none of the Slovenian illustrators participated in the exhibition. In previous years, Ana Zavadlav (2019), Andreja Peklar (2018), Maja Kastelic (2015) and before that Peter Škerl, Alenka Sottler and Lila Prap were featured in the exhibition.

However, the fair will not be without an exhibition of Slovenian illustrators. This year marks the 100^th anniversary of the birth of the Italian writer Italo Calvino, to whom several events will be dedicated at the fair. Ana Zavadlav is one of the 30 illustrators selected for the Italian Excellence. Illustrations for Italo Calvino exhibition as part of the international competition for illustrations of Italo Calvino's works. She illustrated the Italian fairy tales collected by Italo Calvino and published last year in the books Italijanske pravljice 1 (Italian Fairy Tales 1) and Italijanske pravljice 2 (Italian Fairy Tales 2) by the publishing house Mladinska knjiga. Gašper Malej, the translator of the fairy tales, will participate in a discussion with other translators of Calvino's works.