This section provides access to the publications of the Professors of CRLI Scientific Board.
William Grandi - Full Professor (University of Bologna)
https://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/william.grandi/pubblicazioni
Giorgia Grilli - Associate Professor (University of Bologna)
https://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/giorgia.grilli/pubblicazioni
Licia Masoni - Associate Professor (University of Bologna)
https://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/licia.masoni/pubblicazioni
Noteworthy are the following publications regarding the partnership of CRLI with Bologna Children’s Book Fair
La vetrina magica - The magic showcase
50 Years of BolognaRagazzi Awards, Publishers and Children’s Books
Author: William Grandi
Editor: ETS, Pisa, 2015
Graphic art and illustration have always been two fundamental aspects of book publishing. They have lent colour and form to the avant-garde aesthetics, social changes and cultural transformations taking place down the years. This book - result of in-depth historical and critical research - looks at just how graphic art, art and culture interrelate, and does so through the prism of the huge collection of prize-winning books of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair over the last fifty years. The Magic Showcase displaying the volumes from all corners of the world to receive awards or special mentions from discerning international juries, not only testifies to the way publishing, literature and graphic art for young people have developed. It is also a privileged vantage point from which to observe the history of the collective imagination.
Ugo Fontana
Illustrare per l'infanzia - Illustrating for children
Authors: Giorgia Grilli, Fabian Negrin
Translator: Stephanie Johnson
Editor: ETS, Pisa, 2014
Ugo Fontana (1921-1985) was a Florentine illustrator who dedicated his life’s work to children’s books. From the 1940s until his death, Fontana worked for Italy’s major publishers (Fabbri, Mondadori, Marzocco-Giunti etc.) especially producing large format fairy stories, many for the very popular Fiabe Sonore series that practically no Italian home was without in the 1960s. He also illustrated novels, book covers and learning books like, for example, Grandi Regine (Queens) an overview of women sovereigns from ancient times to the modern day. Here, his vast knowledge of the history of art was harnessed to produce sophisticated compositions and amazing portraits.
Fontana’s focus on childhood and the child’s complex interior world (his children are shown in the full gamut of moods), gave his work an extraordinary sensitivity and quality. His dedication to what he considered the greatest challenge – illustrating for children – led him to illustrate more than 250 books.
Returning to examine Fontana’s work in an age where illustration techniques are swifter, more superficial and rarely painstakingly ‘manual’, prompts reflection on the current state of illustrations for children and where they could or should be going. This catalogue in English and Italian includes a wide selection of works by Ugo Fontana, an artist who illustrated the most well-known and successful children’s books of his day, works that now enjoy a cult following and have become prized collector items.
Bologna - Cinquant'anni di libri per bambini da tutto il mondo. Bologna Children's Book Fair
Anniversary 1964-2013
Fifty Years of Children's Books From Around the World. Bologna
Curator: Giorgia Grilli
Editor: Bononia University Press, Bologna, 2013
This publication (two twin books of about 600 pages each) collects essays written by Children’s Literature experts and scholars from all parts of the world, who analyse the development of children’s books in their geographic and cultural area, thus outlining a global overview of the history and state-of-the-art of Children’s Literature and its critical studies. The volumes, conceived and financed by the Bologna Children’s Book Fair to mark the occasion of its 50th anniversary, were scientifically edited by the chair of Children’s Literature of the Department of Education Studies at the University of Bologna and by its Children’s Literature Research Centre.