We’ll be making a rare appearance at a special outdoor Australia Day Book Market at Federation Square this Thursday. The market runs from 11am to 6pm next to the Fed Square Visitors Centre (corner of Flinders and Swanston Streets) and we’ll have lots of great kids books on display on our stall, including many at special low prices.

Markets aren’t just an opportunity to sell some books; we also enjoy chatting about our books and seeing what people think of them, so why not pop by and say hello?

Tagged: fed square book market, markets ]]> http://wilkinsfarago.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/meet-wilkins-farago-at-fed-square-this-australia-day/feed/ 0 wilkinsfarago Fed-Square-Book-MarketLOGO http://wilkinsfarago.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/davide-cali-coming-to-australia-in-2012/ http://wilkinsfarago.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/davide-cali-coming-to-australia-in-2012/#comments Thu, 22 Dec 2011 23:11:42 +0000 wilkinsfarago http://wilkinsfarago.wordpress.com/?p=1894 Continue reading →]]>

We've published eight of Davide Cali's books so far.

A great Christmas present for us and Australian kids. One of Europe’s top kids’ writers, Swiss-Italian Davide Cali, is going to tour Australia in May 2012. The tour is part of our activities as a Partner of the National Year of Reading 2012. We’ve set up a special page for his tour, which you can view here.

Feel free to share it with the kids in your life, whoever and wherever they may be.

A very Merry Christmas from all of us at Wilkins Farago!

A librarian friend of mine maintains that A Dad Who Measures Up (2007) is his favourite Davide Cali book. A collaboration with Italian illustrator Anna Laura Cantone, the book is a rich, quirky and ultimately heartwarming story of a little girl who searches for a new dad to ‘measure up’ to her wonderful mum.

Here’s Davide writing about the creation of the book on his Facebook fan page  this week:

I think it was 2003 when I contacted Anna Laura Cantone. I had seen her first books and found her pretty interesting but I still wasn’t sure to call her until I saw the book of the bride [The Wedding Dress Mess]. It was really awesome.

I asked her if she was interested in working with me. At that time a little French publisher, Sarbacane, was translating her book and they wanted to publish an original project if she had one. So she told me that maybe we could try to work together in France. This would be the first of a long series of books I’d do in France, and the first of four I’d do with Anna Laura [their latest collaboration, What is this Thing called Love? came out in June this year].

In some way this is a commissioned book too. Zoolibri asked me for a book about a mum, to put alongside to a book they had translated from Belgium about a dad. I started my story telling about this very special mum, but in the middle of the book, suddenly it became the story of … a dad! So, it being impossible to give it to Zoolibri, I translated it into French.

A Dad Who Measures Up has now been published in France, Spain, Norway, Italy, Belgium, Taiwan, Korea, Portugal, Mexico, Brazil, China and, of course, by Wilkins Farago in Australia.

Our edition, the first and only English language edition, can be purchased in paperback or hardback here, or from your local bookshop.

I Like Chocolate

One of our very favourite authors, Davide Cali, has been reminiscing about his book, I Like Chocolate, on his Facebook fan page. We published the book in English in 2009 and it’s been a popular title ever since. Says Cali:

It’s my 4th book but I consider it my very first, because it was the “first” to be translated in another country, the first to receive an award (Eurochocolate 2001, a month after the publication), the first not illustrated by myself.

And the first commissioned too.

Corrado, the publisher, just called me asking: “Do you like chocolate?”

It’s funny that our over-10-years adventure and friendship just began in this way.

Maybe it should begin always in this way.

I worked with Evelyn [Evelyn Daviddi] on a second book and now we’re starting a third one. We don’t meet or call each other too often but when we start a new book we find again the way to work, as the first time.

You can purchase I Like Chocolate from your local bookseller, or online here.

We have a very exciting announcement regarding Davide, which we’ll be making in the next week or two.

Have a look, and then see what all the fuss is about by buying the book Matt Groening describes as ‘one of the all time great cartoon books’ here.

Georges has been an icon of Melbourne retailing since the 1880s.

DELIGHTED TO note that Readers Feast, one of Melbourne’s best bookshops, is re-opening in the old Georges site in Collins Street, having severed its links with the now-defunct Redgroup Retail and received new financial backing.

Manager Mary Dalmau, one of Melbourne’s book selling stalwarts, has been hard at work on the new store since the old one closed in July.

‘I am a passionate, vocational bookseller, who believes a city of Melbourne’s cultural stature is capable of embracing and supporting an independent bookstore that has as its hallmarks an enormous range, a dedicated and knowledgeable team of booksellers, and a beautiful and engaging physical space,’ she says in a statement on the Readers Feast website.

It’s great to have you back, Mary. Looking forward to seeing the new store, which should be open in ‘early December’.

Wilkins Farago is a proud sponsor of the Children’s Story Exhibition opening at Gasworks Arts Park this Saturday 19th November.

The Man, Dog, Boat Story Exhibition celebrates storytelling at its most imaginative. It is a collection of children’s stories and illustrations based on the iconic sculpture at the entrance to Gasworks Arts Park, Man, Dog, Boat, created by Henry Smith in 1995.

The work in the exhibition will explore the story surrounding these mysterious characters inspired by creative workshops with illustrator Ann James, author Meredith Costain and illustrator Trudy White. Children all over Victoria were also encouraged to get involved through the mandogboat.wikispace.com.

With over a 100 entries including animation, poetry, sculpture and even a mockumentary, don’t miss this opportunity to celebrate children’s creativity and imagination!

Opening: Sat 19 Nov at 11am

Awards Presented at: 11.30am

Dates of exhibition: 19 to 27 November 2011

Venue: Gatehouse Building, Gasworks Arts Park, Albert Park, Victoria

I’ve often found writing articles is an excellent way of achieving a better understanding of some of the book industry’s key challenges. For those who missed them at the time because they were too busy working the halls, or wish to discover more about what goes on at Frankfurt, I’ve compiled a list of all the articles I wrote below, as well as posted here daily video summaries of the fair I made for Publishing Perspectives.

For Bookseller+Publisher

• ‘Frankfurt: international exhibitor numbers up’ (11 Oct 2011: subscription required)
• ‘Happy campers at Frankfurt dispel global gloom’ (18 Oct 2011: subscription required)
• I’ve also written a more detailed piece on Frankfurt for Bookseller+Publisher magazine’s Summer Issue, which should be out soon.

For Publishing Perspectives