International Children's Book Day 2025

In 2025, International Children's Book Day (ICBD) is sponsored by IBBY-Netherlands and the poster is made by two Dutch creators of children’s books. The theme of the 2025 International Children's Book Day is The Freedom of Imagination.

It is just one week until International Children's Book Day. This year our IBBY Australia members will be sent a wonderful video celebrating eight organisations from around Australia associated with children and reading and children's literature. Organisations that reflect three of our goals:

·       to give children everywhere the opportunity to have access to books with high                 literary and artistic standards

·       to provide support and training for those involved with children and children's                 literature

·       to protect and uphold the Rights of the Child according to the UN Convention on             the Rights of the Child

If you have an art teacher in your school you might like to enter the internation competition for ICBD 2025.

Read more here

Here is the 2025 official poster and poem. And here are some lesson suggestions. This is the link to the three lessons or you can access this from the previous link.

The Language of Pictures
Rian Visser
Translation: Laura Watkinson 

Can you draw pictures
for the words,
for the things I say?

Then draw
part of the picture,
cold,
wind,
a lump in your throat
or tough luck,

draw a cough,
a sigh,
the scent of fresh bread,
time,
a moment,
the beginning or the end
of a plan,

draw the place wherever,
the place where never,
the place where soon
something is going to happen,

draw the pain of a push,
the taste of the sea.

There is so much
that I want to see,
like love,
one day,
and maybe for me.

Make pictures
for my poem,
and please feel free:
these words
belong to you
even though they came from me.

Poster Illustrator: Janneke Ipenburg (b. 1979) is a Dutch illustrator of children’s books. She has made two poetry collections with Rian Visser, including Het is een zachte dag vandaag (2024). As an author/illustrator, she created the picture book Voor altijd bij jou (2023), a story about being connected in spite of an immeasurable distance. In addition to her work as a children’s illustrator, Janneke has worked on a number of animation films, and she is currently working as a character designer on a large Chinese stop-motion animation. In 2023, Janneke was on the longlist of the World Illustration Awards.

You can see her books here.

Message author from the poster: Rian Visser (b. 1966) is a Dutch children’s book writer and poet. She writes funny and exciting books that are a perfect match for children’s interests. Together with the illustrator Janneke Ipenburg, she has created the poetry collections Alle wensen van de wereld (2021) and Het is een zachte dag vandaag (2024). In 2022, Rian Visser won a Zilveren Griffel and the Gouden Poëziemedaille (Gold Poetry Medal). Rian Visser is very active in education. She designs digital lessons about creative writing and reading promotion, which teachers can use for free. From 2024 to 2026, she has officially been appointed Dutch Children’s Laureate.

You can see more books here.