During the last decade, a lot has changed in children’s publishing. Not only does the number of books keep growing – often at the expense of their quality – but an ever-larger amount of publishing houses with an established history in targeting adult readers choose to include in their catalogues products specifically aimed at children and teenagers, perhaps sensing a stronger vitality of this market and the possibility to reach a larger number of readers. Despite the latest statistics on reading literacy in Italy clearly indicate a decline among young people as well as adults, new series of books and new publishers continue to emerge, and a general tendency to scan some of the less explored international markets can be registered, as demonstrated by the rise in translations of books from Northern and Eastern Europe and Asia, as well as a desire to recover classics that had been either forgotten or never before published in Italy.

The paper highlights some of the most relevant trends in Italian children’s publishing, presented as a thorough yet not-exhaustive portrait of the major shifts that have occurred in the last decade: the appearance of new series and publishers with strong editorial identities; the multiplication of books by Italian writers; the progressive shift towards cultural and geographical literary canons that were not considered before; the increase in politically and socially engaged books; the phenomenal rise of the children’s graphic novel market.