Listening to Each Other’s Voices: the 40th IBBY Congress
Pam Dix reports on the 40th IBBY World Congress, Ottawa, August 2026
Listening to Each Other’s Voices was such a good choice of theme for the 40th IBBY Congress. I don’t think even the organisers could have predicted four years ago how relevant and important it would be at this moment.
The Congress was an action-packed four days of talks, panels and events which, combined with meetings and conversations with colleagues from around the world, meant that it was both stimulating and empowering. I am highlighting some of my key moments here.
One of the key themes for Canada IBBY was to explore and focus on the work that has been done with indigenous communities. There is now great respect for the land and land ownership, and much talk about protecting cultures and languages, of which there are 600 in Canada. There was less emphasis in discussing past failings, though life on the ‘res’ came up regularly in talks. The IBBY Canada exhibition From Sea to Sea is the current update of a regular booklist of books by and about these communities, where there seems to be a developing publishing industry. There are really interesting authors and illustrators working in this area and it’s well worth taking a look.
This exhibition sat very well with the newly launched IBBY/UNESCO project – Collection of Remarkable Books in Indigenous and Endangered Languages. The catalogue is available here 
and the collection is bookable through IBBY.
Two other important collections were launched at the Congress. One is the ongoing Children’s Books From and About Palestine, led by IBBY UK for all IBBY sections. The collection now includes about 45 books from around the world in a variety of languages, with suggested titles still coming in.
A keynote speaker at the Congress was Senator Kristopher Wells, a Canadian parliamentary spokesperson on LGBTQ+ issues, who gave an inspirational talk on the need to provide books for all. He encouraged everyone to renew their commitment to the book provision struggle, framed by his opening remarks that ‘if you want to understand what a society truly values, do not begin by reading its constitution or its political speeches. Start by reading its children’s books’. A former teacher, he donated his own collection of books 
to provide a starting point to build a ‘library of hope’, of LGBTQ+ books from around the world. His talk was followed by a panel of activists in this area.
This is the list as it currently stands and we in the UK need to work out how to contribute further.
There were author and illustrator talks in abundance and it was a pure delight to listen to Jon Klassen, celebrating his Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award win, on the subject of ‘revenge’, and Sydney Smith, who 
amongst other topics discussed illustrating the ‘sea’.
There were evening celebrations at the stunning Canadian Museum of History including the Hans Christian Andersen Award ceremony presented to our own Michael Rosen and Cai Gao from China.
The presentation of the new IBBY Honour Book list was accompanied by a series of activities for children and a book parade where all participants dressed as a favourite book character. The image of our own Evelyin Arizpe as a ‘beautiful butterfly’ was sparkly in the extreme and I was a very scruffy Just William, a character little known outside the UK it seems.
One Canadian speaker, new to me and totally inspiring, was Michael Chikwanine, a former child soldier, now a peace advocate. He is the author of Child Soldier: When Boys and Girls are Used in War (CitizenKid, 2015). He talked with great clarity and power about being a refugee, making the important point that so many books on refugees do not make much mention of the world the refugee left, though when this part of the story is included, it benefits both the child and the world s/he is moving to. To paraphrase, he said if you don’t find your story, then you conclude that books are not for you and that you are not part of the world. Hearing these ideas through his voice was such a strong message. It would be brilliant to find a way of getting him to the UK.
There were many IBBY meetings and updates on project and awards and it was particularly important to me to hear that there is some progress on encouraging more countries in Africa to join IBBY. It was good to meet with Zimbabwe and Ethiopia sections to hear what they are doing. Basarat Kazim, IBBY President, in her powerful opening and closing remarks reminded us to leave carrying each other’s stories and remember to listen to children.
Pam Dix is Chair of IBBY UK and a regular contributor to Books for Keeps.
