The 21st edition of the National Children's Book Festival has begun in Sliven, which has long established itself as an independent center of children's books in Bulgaria. The official opening was by Mariya Gabriel (European Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society), who thanked for the invitation and shared that this festival makes her dream. "Madam Director [Rositsa Petrova], You are the embodiment of today's enlighteners. And you, the creators, make our childhood even more colorful, because children's books are not only in our childhood, but in our entire life!"
The festive program, which was led by Dragomir Draganov, began with a bagpipe performance by Dencho Petrov, and continued with a vocal formation from the Milka Stoeva children's choir, a performance of the Tiara acro ballet, the Barbie ballet, and the Nightingale children's vocal group.
The first day of the festival is traditionally dedicated to the illustration exhibitions.
One of the wonderful surprises of this year's festival, for all those who could not be in Plovdiv at the end of January, is the opening of Boris Stoilov's exhibition "Japanese Fairy Tales" by Iztok-Zapad Publishing House. The exhibition was opened by actor Vangel Apostolov with a short performance related to Japanese culture and fairy tales, together with artist Petar Stanimirov, who in his short presentation described his colleague's work as an "incredible exhibition". And the illustrations are truly extremely captivating with their thin outline and dynamic composition, which unfolds not only in the pages of the book, but also in the "May" Hall itself.
The second exhibition presented at the “Sirak Skitnik” gallery is by last year’s winner of the National “Konstantin Konstantinov” Award, Maya Bocheva. The artist (and author of some of the books) presented over 80 panels from over thirty books, as well as several works that we are still waiting for to be released on the Bulgarian market. During the opening of the exhibition, she also introduced the children to the mobile game application for her book “Who Lit the Moon?”, and the little readers had the opportunity to play with the red-haired heroine Lyubka Lyubopitkova on site.
The third exhibition of the day was by Petar Stanimirov, who presented to the Sliven audience the exhibition of illustrations and comics "The Ring of the Nibelung" with the participation of Elena Pavlova (author of the text) and Mariyana Zlatareva (publisher Kibea). Relatively recently, the team managed to finalize the work on the tetralogy and present to the audience the unique edition in the form of a comic book, during the month of comics in Sofia. On the second day of the festival, the artist will also give a master class and tell a little more about how comics are made.
This year’s roundtable with international participation, which will be held in two parts, is on the topic of “Fantasy and Humor in Contemporary Children’s Literature: Why It’s Important to Offer Children Multiple Worlds”. The participants touched on topics such as “Pedagogy and Cosmology” (Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mladen Enchev), “Fantasy and Humor in Contemporary Children’s Literature” (Nikola Raykov), “The Worlds of Fantasy. The Serious, the Lyrical and the Funny in the Work Process of a Children’s Writer” (Vesela Flamburari), “Big Problems Should Be Solved by Themselves! Isn’t That Why They’re Big?” Humor as a Philosophy in Children's Literature” (Petya Kokudeva), “Fantasy and Humor in Valeri Petrov's Children's Tales” (Prof. Dr. Albert Benbasat), “In the Footsteps of Humor in Hungarian Children's Literature” (Ester Hamburger), “Nonsense and Humor in the Work of Petar Nikol” (Martina Salhiova), “Children's Desires as a Guide to Other Worlds in the Work of Grozdana Olujić” (Prof. Dr. Jovan Ljuštanović) and “Humor in Contemporary Serbian Poetry for Children” (Dejan Aleksić). We will not summarize the discussions of the participants, as they are too specific in themselves, and the collection of publications can be purchased from the library.
Among the book premieres on the first day were “Lupo and Tumba” by Petya Kokudeva, “Mentolcho” by Lili Spasova, “Kamen and the Pirates” by Elena Pavlova and “Zlostorii” by Yavor Tsanev. The authors answered questions from students from local schools and signed autographs, and the main themes in each of the books were summarized by short theatrical performances that introduced young readers to the main storyline of the works and provoked their interest.
Of course, the first day did not pass without a lot of dancing, singing and performances not only in the hall of the St. Kirov Drama Theater, but also on the square at the beginning of the pedestrian alley, where the book bazaar is located.
Photos and text: Milena Radeva
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