Awaiting the unveiling of BookCity Milano 2026’s updates and guests, at the presentation meeting on Monday, October 26, the projects for younger readers are outlined, with a program that this year reaches the earliest age group as well through BookCity Milano 0-6, a diffuse “parallel” event to the main festival, conceived to bring reading closer to children and families, especially in the city’s neighborhoods where cultural offerings arrive more intermittently.
BookCity for Schools returns with its most beloved initiatives, such as BCZeta, the cultural self-management workshop which renews itself for its fourth edition, to which is added a true annual program, with pathways designed for classes and teachers and a new contest for schools on the year’s theme.
BookCity Università translates the year’s theme through reflections, performances and multidisciplinary dialogues in universities, academies and conservatories across the territory.
The BookCity Milano 0-6 Project
Among the innovations of this edition, as noted, BookCity Milano 0-6 is the project dedicated to promoting reading for the 0-6 age group, realized with the support of Fondazione Cariplo within the Anita – Early Childhood First initiative, “aimed at preventing educational and social fragilities, fostering the well-being of families, and strengthening services that contribute to the proper cognitive, emotional and relational development from infancy.”
Developed in dialogue with the principals of the network Mimì (Milano Mille Giorni), the maternal–infant support network created to counter child poverty in the first 1000 days of life, BookCity Milano 0-6 emerges as a diffuse event parallel to the main festival, reaching the various Milan municipalities, with an event also in Cremona, at the Nuovo Polo dell’Infanzia “Mario Lodi.”
For this pilot edition, the BookCity Milano 0-6 program will consist of read-aloud sessions, meetings and workshops designed for the readers of tomorrow and their families, but also for teachers, educators to experiment and reflect on approaches to reading in early childhood. The events will feature authors and illustrators of children’s books, but also personalities from the worlds of theatre, literature, and art, capable of linking the world of the written word with different languages. The BookCity Milano 0-6 schedule will also comprise a self-produced events program, born from proposals by associations, libraries and other city entities belonging to proximity networks.
“We Believe that Reading Remains a Valuable Tool for Encounter and Dialogue”
“BookCity Milano began as a diffuse festival and grows by staying true to its vocation: to be, increasingly, a place open to readers of all ages. In a moment when public debate also questions the composition of the student population, we believe that reading remains a valuable tool for encounter and dialogue, capable of uniting students and families beyond differences. It is in this spirit that we continue to invest in projects that enhance the resources and potential of Milan’s schoolchildren, convinced, however, that this cultural hub must originate earlier, from early childhood, involving families, educators and communities in a widespread manner across the territory,” stated Luca Formenton, president of Fondazione BookCity Milano.
“A Precious Opportunity to Bring Children and Families Closer to Reading”
“BookCity Milano 0-6 represents a precious opportunity to bring children and families closer to reading and to highlight the role that books and stories can play in the development of the youngest readers. With the Anita – L’infanzia prima challenge, Fondazione Cariplo supports projects that counter educational inequalities and promote the well-being of children through the involvement of families and educational communities. Reading from the earliest years stimulates language development, strengthens relationships and fuels curiosity about the world. In this light, initiatives like BookCity Milano 0-6 contribute to creating widespread educational opportunities and to promoting a context conducive to growth, well-being and development for new generations,” adds Valeria Negrini, Vice President of Fondazione Cariplo.
BookCity Milano for Schools has a new contest
BookCity for Schools returns again this year with a path of “projects that place reading at the center as a shared experience, turning classrooms into a diffuse workshop of ideas and citizenship.”
New for 2026 is the inaugural Contest dedicated to 10 Milan secondary schools (5 from the first cycle and 5 from the second cycle) focused on the year’s theme – The Sense on the Moon. During September, Balzano will meet with teachers from the territory to present the Contest, offer reading tips and ideas; subsequently, a call to action on the theme will be launched, inviting classes to participate with works of various kinds: narrative texts, poetry, reflections, letters, dialogues, illustrations or other expressive forms.
To act as jury and to preside over the awards ceremony, scheduled for Wednesday, November 25, will be the students of BCZeta, the cultural self-management workshop of BookCity that sees Milanese school students involved in building a true festival in every aspect: from choosing the themes and guests, to organizing the meetings, to hosting them.
In addition to the awards event, the BCZeta students will curate a four-meeting series scheduled for Saturday, October 17, 2026, at the Laboratorio di Fondazione Mondadori. During the gatherings, fully organized and led by them, four different topics identified during the planning phase will be discussed: the relationship between money and happiness, love in indie and trap music, choosing a field of study, and information (and disinformation) online.
BookCity Milano for the Universities
Again this year BookCity Università returns with a schedule that translates the year’s theme through “reflections, performances and multidisciplinary dialogues” across universities, academies and conservatories in the region: “a cohesive community, which opens its spaces to the city, reaffirming its ability to read the present, promote dialogue and uphold the civil value of knowledge.” In “a particularly evident way” in this edition, BookCity Università presents itself as “an integral and constitutive part of the festival and of the city that hosts it, as a place of access to the general public offering non-academic opportunities for meeting for reading enthusiasts. Furthermore, many university sites open their libraries and collections, display manuscripts, and rare editions.”
The Theme of BookCity Milano 2026
The Reason on the Moon – Seven Days of Books, Reasons and Folliesis the thematic focus of the year for Bookcity (a festival promoted by the Culture Department of the City of Milan and by the BOOKCITY MILANO Foundation, formed by Fondazione Corriere della Sera, Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, Fondazione Umberto e Elisabetta Mauri, Fondazione Arnoldo e Alberto Mondadori, and by AIE – Italian Publishers Association). It draws inspiration from one of the most celebrated episodes in world literature: Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, where Astolfo goes to the Moon to retrieve the rationality of the paladin driven mad, kept in a glass vial. A powerful and at the same time fragile image, which, after more than five centuries, tells us how necessary and urgent it is today to attempt to regain the thread of lucidity.
