Big Bologna surprise

We’re still processing this wild news!

It was just a regular mid-April morning at Messy Press HQ in Auckland…

All very normal until...

We received news that we’d won the 2026 Bologna Prize!?!

Repeat, Messy Press had been awarded the Children’s Publisher of the Year for Oceania at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair!!

We were already flabbergasted to have been shortlisted amongst so many inspiring children’s publishers.

Especially as a relative newcomer based in New Zealand.

So to actually win the top honour was a bit bonkers. And delightful!

Sadly, we weren’t able to be in Italy to receive this in person, which would have been amazing, so instead we plugged into the social feeds and raised a big glass of prosecco to celebrate.

Congratulations to all the other regional winners!

Thanks to PANZ for ensuring the trophy got back to us in New Zealand.

And thank you to everyone in Bologna who may have voted for us.

We’re chuffed to bits to see that there’s potential in what we’re doing at Messy Press and in our list of books… More on that very soon!

Hopefully we’ll pop over to Bologna next year!

Until then, we’d better push on. There’s lots to do…