EVENTS – DafDaf and Pagine Ebraiche at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair

By Ada Treves

Spring in Italy is a season for book fairs, opening with the prestigious Bologna Children’s Book Fair (March 30-April 2), the most important international event for children literature. Last year’s experiment, when the initiative called “Do not tell the adults” opened hall 33 to the public, had such a success with its international library and its more than one hundred events organized in collaboration with the Cooperativa culturale Giannino Stoppani, that this year the Fiera di Bologna has organized a “Young readers weekend”. Elena Pasoli and Roberta Chinni, responsible for the event, have decided to open the Fair – normally reserved to professionals – to teachers, with a special program dedicated to education, teaching and young people culture. And the collaboration between Pagine Ebraiche and DafDaf, the Jewish magazine for kids, and the Bologna Children’s Book Fair is getting stronger year after year: this time the Authors Café hosts a roundtable organized by DafDaf that will discuss how to talk to kids about “what should not be said”, with Anna Castagnoli, Nadia Terranova, Paolo Cesari e Luisa Valenti. Another two initiatives, promoted by Pagine Ebraiche and DafDaf, will take place at the Bologna Jewish Museum: the official opening of the exhibit “Being Rutu Modan”, and a workshop that will teach children the history of the ghetto of Rome, thanks to the intervention of the authors of “Portico d’Ottavia”, the book written by historian Anna Foa and illustrated by Matteo Berton.

And the organization of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, then, will help spread the culture and values of the Jewish minority distributing during the four days event hundreds of copies of Pagine Ebraiche and DafDaf , with their special pages, among which the dossier “Leggere per crescere” (To read to grow) a yearly focus on literature for young readers.