IBBY Canada organised a fabulous four-day World Congress in August 2026 with keynotes, roundtables, panel sessions, workshops and poster sessions - this was my fourth IBBY Congress. I also attended two USBBY Conferences in the past. I always leave these events filled with admiration and awe of all the amazing work done by people from every corner of the world who work with children and reading and books. I so admire their passion and intelligence. (and their ability to switch between two or three or more languages).
Prior to the first day we were so privileged to hear about the IBBY Children in Crisis projects with: Patsy Aldana (former IBBY President, and former President of the IBBY Foundation and IBBY Trust), Basarat Kazim (IBBY Pakistan), and Shereen Kreidieh (IBBY Lebanon). I will talk about this session in more detail over the coming days.
Basarat Kazim (IBBY President) shared an inspirational short film - I asked her later if there might be a way to view and share this with a wider audience. This is not the film she shared but it is another showcasing her work in Pakistan. Basarat, in her role as president, delivered several inspirational speeches throughout the Congress especially around the theme "Listening to each other's voices".
OPENING CEREMONY
During the opening ceremony we heard from Monica Ittusardjuat (Inuit) a Residential School survivor who grew up in a time when Inuit lived a subsistence way of life, moving camps and following animals where they were plentiful. Monica shared the story Lighting the Qulliq a wordless picture book showing a grandmother and granddaughter from long ago lighting a qulliq, an Inuit lamp that provides light and warmth to the Earth. It was a hugely emotional moment when she lit a qulliq on the podium.
In the second part of the Opening Ceremony we heard from Honourable Senator Kristopher Wells, PHD. Kristopher is an educator and champion of the 2SLGBTQI+ community who has used research and advocacy to help advance diversity, equity and human rights in his home province of Alberta, across Canada, and around the world. His focus was this year’s theme of Gender, Sex, and Sexuality in children’s literature. As part of the 40th IBBY World Congress, we were given the catalogue (included in our conference bags) and we were able to peruse the exhibition titled Reading with Pride: Stories for Everyone. Reading with Pride features over 300 2SLGBTQ+ children’s picture books, originally collected by Senator Wells and expanded through a call to Canadian publishers. I did spy some Australian titles in the book display such as 'Who's your real mum' by Bernadette Green and 'My shadow is Pink' by Scott Stuart. You can hear Kristopher talking about the collection here.
Here is the conference bag and its contents including the Reading with Pride catalogue
Extra sessions and Closing Ceremony:
Here are the sessions I attended (I will share more details about many of these in further posts):
PP 02 INCLUSIVE CLASSROOMS AND LIBRARIES: BEST PRACTICES
Discovering Lifesaving Books Elena Perikleous Commissioner for the Protection of Children’s Rights, IBBY Cyprus
Developing a Critical Analysis Framework for Picture Books About Children on the Move Tess Prendergast University of British Columbia, Canada
An Expansion to the APALA Rubric to Evaluate AAPI Youth Literature (Asian American and Pacific Islander Youth Literature) Filipino Diasporic Texts in Focus Cheeno Marlo D. Sayuno University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of the Philippines Los Baños, Philippines
An Exploration of Classic Children’s Literature through the Lens of Humanistic Education Nasser Yousefi Independent, Canada (texts: Pippi Longstocking, Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and The Little Prince).
PP 04 LISTENING TO VOICES IN NON-FICTION
Listening to the Sea: Exploring the Fascinating World of Ocean Wildlife with Non-Fiction Picture Books Sabine Fuchs Independent Researcher, Austria
Books Without Borders: Representing Migration in Non-Fiction for Young Readers Ana Margarida Ramos University of Aveiro, Portugal
The Power of Voice: Analyzing Puerto Rican Representation in Children’s Biographies Aura E. Gonzalez Robles Universidad de Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico Ruth J. Saez Vega Universidad de Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico Adriana N. Sotomayor Pérez The Ohio State University, US
PP 06 IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCES: BELONGING AND IDENTITY
Transnational Narrative and Poetic Justice in Children’s Novels by Asian Diaspora Authors in the West Fengxia Tan Nanjing Normal University, China
Shaping Identity through Memory in Iranian Diaspora Children’s Picture books Maryam Mohammadkhani Independent Researcher/Writer, Canada
From Looked-At to Heard: Voice, Power, and Immigration Narratives in YA Fiction Aleksandra Strelcova IBBY Lithuania
PP 12 LISTENING TO MIGRANT AND REFUGEE VOICES
Lonesome Child Refugees – Too Uncomfortable Narratives? Jaana Pesonen University of Helsinki, Finland
Forgotten Border Crossings: Rethinking Childhood, Belonging, and Unbelonging for North Korean Defectors Yoo Kyung Sung University of New Mexico, USA
PP 23 REIMAGINING CITIZENSHIP
Voicing Citizenship: Children’s Civic Agency in Schools, Museums, and Literature Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak University of Wrocław. Poland
The Plural Identity of Brazilian Children’s Literature Maria Carolina Nunes Gobbo University of São Paulo, Brazil
Between Critical Hope and Moral Ambiguity: Picture books Mediating Cross-Conflict Youth Dialogue Chang Li University of Padova, Italy
DINNER
Hans Christian Andersen Award Dinner - Michael Rosen and Cia Gao. Michael Rosen gave a fabulous speech - I do hope it is republished by IBBY either on their web page or in Bookbird.
EXHIBITIONS
The congress also presented an exhibition for the Hans Christian Andersen Award 2026 by some of the most distinguished voices in contemporary children’s literature, whose contributions have made a lasting international impact. Works by winners, author Michael Rosen (United Kingdom) and illustrator Cai Gao (China). Alongside them, the exhibition highlighted books by shortlisted authors: Ahmad Akbarpour (Iran), María José Ferrada (Chile), Timothée de Fombelle (France), Lee Geum-yi (Republic of Korea), and Pam Muñoz Ryan (United States). Along with the illustrators Beatrice Alemagna (Italy), Linda Bondestam (Finland), Gundega Muzikante (Latvia), Walid Taher (Egypt), and María Wernicke (Argentina).
Other exhibitions - 2025 IBBY Collection for Young People with Disabilities: IBBY-UNESCO Collection of Remarkable Books in Indigenous and Endangered Languages; The IBBY Collection of
Children’s Books from and about Palestine (A map for Falasteen); and 25 years of the Governor General's Literary Award Winners (Canada). The exhibitions were staged over three venues and so I sadly missed a couple - The Panda Awards and Folktales reimagined from UAEBBY.
Honour titles I have talked about here: Picasso and the Greatest Show on earth by Anna Fienberg (Australia); Simon sort of says (Canada); The eyes and the Impossible (translation to Dutch); Then and Now by Datsun Tran (Australia); Frindle Files (translation to Turkish); Not Nothing (USA); and Medusa (Translation to Greek). I also spied Silverborn by Jessica Townsend translated into Norwegian.
On the Canadian Governor General's award stand I spied: The Probability of Everything (one of my top books); Stand on the sky; The Crazy man; Sweep the story of a girl and her monster; and Airborn (Kenneth Oppel).
Sessions I missed that I wish I had attended:
PP 11 WAR AND TRAUMA
Listening to the Whispers: Giving Voice to Young People in the Midst of War Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch Independent Author, Canada
Kan Yama Kan: Building Libraries, Bridging Voices, and Healing Through Books Marwa Al Aqroubi UAEBBY, UAE
Stories of Hope: Literature Workshops for War-Witnessing Children amid Ongoing Instability in Tehran Hooria Rezaei Ruhr-University Bochum, German
PP 10 MIGRANTS: WORDLESS PICTUREBOOKS AND THE LAMPEDUSA PROJECT
A Very Powerful Silence Deborah Soria Silent Books—Final Destination Lampedusa IBBY Project, Italy
Listening to Silence: Building Bridges to Understanding with the IBBY Silent Books Collection Jared S. Crossley The Ohio State University, USA Lisa Pinkerton The Ohio State University, USA
The Narrative Aesthetics and Cross-Cultural Characteristics of Wordless Picture books Qingzhi Zhu Nanjing Normal University, China
I wrote heaps of notes but here are two quotes which resonated with me:
Small Stories Connect the Vast World.
Delicious and Nutritious Children's books are Food for the Soul.
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