Ciao, ragazzi! Welcome again to the Fat City for our annual swan dive into the greatest children’s book fair, which this year will be a welcome reprise from the shocking and dismaying news across the world. I refer in the main, of course, to the Sydney Sweeney break-up rumours and her running to granite-jawed Glen “just a friend” Powell for support. The Bookseller will be following every development in this breaking story.

Anyway, I do feel a certain flatness this Bologna, as my usual smug messages on The Bookseller group chat (it’s called Hegseth’s Heroes) – like “It’s gelato o’clock!” or “Aperol in the sun? Yaaas, bee-atch” followed by a fist bump, American flag and fire emojis with instructions for F-18 strikes in the Yemen – don’t really hit that hard when the team back home in Blighty is having warmer and sunnier weather. But listen, I did appreciate the Comune di Bologna ripping up all the trams to spiral the usual hellscape of ora-di-punta traffic down to a Dante level nine. 

I will admit to feeling slightly nervous yesterday as I strolled through Hall 26, with the Canada national stand a matter of metres from Combined Book Exhibit’s US contingent. There was definitely a frisson, wasn’t there? And by frisson, I mean there should be a demilitarised zone between the two. It felt like all it would take would be for someone to mutter “Never 51” under their breath and the Canadians would pile in with fists of fury shouting: “For God, Gosling and Mark Carney!” 

Now, I’m not a betting man but if it comes down to a kerfuffle, I’d put my loonies on Team Canada – I’ve heard tell that Owlkids sales supremo Judy Brunsek had a lengthy pre-publishing stint in the hard-as-nails Canadian junior hockey leagues as a goon for the Waywayseecappo Wolverines, where her nickname was “Fists of Poutine”. Don’t mess, Yanks, just don’t mess.

I was also disconcerted when I strolled over to the rights centre, as something definitely was amiss: no falling masonry, rude staff, quadrupled-booked tables or the general feeling of despair in “the bad place” of the fair a fortnight past. If you were there, you know of what I speak (though I am sure this kind of stuff will be a thing of the past in the Emma Lowe era). Indeed, Molly Ker Hawn could be seen with hands splayed across The Bent Agency’s table, cackling gleefully: “It’s ours, all ours.”

But, did you clock these new rights stands with an operating-room sterility, complete with hospital curtains (to be drawn for those particularly tough negotiations)? I’m pretty sure they are consulting rooms left over from the Fiere’s February event, the International Congress of Aesthetic Medicine and Surgery, as ol’ Horace flew out there for his annual Miami Thong Lift and a dozen rounds of Botox. Looking forward to bumping into you at the parties this week; I will be delighted but you won’t be able to tell, since my face is now “snatched for the gods”, aka as expressionless as a Kardashian’s. Arrivederci!