A Feather is a successful example of collaboration between Chinese authors and foreign illustrators. Photo provided to China Daily

Scholars leaf through emperor's encyclopedia online

Stranger gives fiction

China Children's Press and Publishing Group has already dipped its toe in the international market. The Happy Piggy Joey created by Gao Hongbo, has been a best-selling series in China. More than 200,000 copies have been sold on Dangdang.

At the book fair, a French publisher signed a contract with China Children's Press and Publishing Group for the series' copyright in French.

"Illustration is particularly important in children's books, but we Chinese publishers fall behind many other countries in this field," Li says. "We came upon an idea of working with foreign artists, to create better picture books, and hope their new ideas will inspire China's artists."

A Feather is a collaboration between Chinese author Cao Wenxuan and Brazilian illustrator Roger Mello. The Chinese publisher sent Cao's story in English to Mello, and Mello created paintings based on it. When he first met Mello at Bologna Fair, Cao was excited, saying Mello pictured the story "just like it was shown in my mind".

A Brazilian publisher has decided to introduce A Feather to be published in Portuguese in South America.

Hou Mingliang, general manager of Children's Fun Publishing Co Ltd, says his company has gone further than its peers in China in terms of international collaboration and exchange.

A long-term strategic partner with Disney Group, Children's Fun provides content to the United States entertainment giant. "We pay for the license for the use of Disney cartoon characters' images, but Disney pays us for our content - new stories, new picture books and so on."

Children's Fun is a joint venture with Egmont Group from Denmark that has been operating since 1994. "We publish more than 100 Disney picture books every year - all created by us in China, and sold all over the world. Our products are equal in quality to those in other countries, sometimes even better," Hou says.

Young readers are not easily satisfied, according to Xu Xi'an, deputy director of New Era Publishing House.

"Today's middle school students can access information from the whole world, through all kinds of digital media thanks to the Internet and electronic devices," Xu said at a forum during the fair. "Can China's publishers catch up with them and inspire them to read, and fall in love with reading - that's the challenge faced by our whole industry."

"We are in a time of unprecedented prosperity for children's literature, but there needs to be more books addressing realistic issues for children in China," says Li of China Children's Press and Publications Group.