On children’s books, illustration, and reading. A report from the conference „We Need the Reading Vitamin”
On Friday, March 27, 2026, the National Library welcomed librarians, publishers, illustrators, and scholars of children’s literature. The conference and workshops „We Need the Reading Vitamin” were organized by the publishing houses Wytwórnia, Tatarak, and Widnokrąg, and the National Library was a partner of this event accompanying the fifth edition of the Mały Koneser festival and book fair.
The conference program was conceived as a space for exchanging local and international experiences, as well as for discussing how to effectively and thoughtfully support a culture of reading among children and young people today. In the panel „An Eye on Illustration” Aina Bestard and Sara Lundberg spoke about illustration as a distinct language of storytelling rather than merely an addition to text. They emphasized the importance of picturebooks and wordless books, as well as the role of images in the development of young readers. Another key idea that emerged was that drawing is a way of seeing the world, and that a child first learns to read images, and only later words.
An international perspective was brought by the panel „An Eye on the World” featuring José Díaz, Grazia Gotti, Ulla Saar, and Vita Yevstifievej. The discussion focused on the children’s book market, practices for promoting reading, and cooperation among publishers, libraries, bookshops, and creators. There was a clear emphasis on the need to support high-quality books and reading-promotion initiatives in libraries and schools, as well as on the conviction that not only children have the right to beautiful and wise books.
After the break, participants returned to the question posed in the event’s title. In the discussion „We Need the Reading Vitamin” Anna Czernow, Joanna Piekarska, and Krzysztof Rybak talked about the challenges currently faced by publishers and libraries, changing reading habits, and the responsibility of various institutions for creating conditions that enable encounters with valuable literature. Throughout the conversation, the idea kept returning that promoting reading is not about passing trends, but about books that stay with the reader for longer and build a genuine relationship with literature.
A special place in the program was given to the meeting „Wilkoń – About People and Animals,” during which Monika Wróbel-Lutz spoke with Józef Wilkoń about illustration, art, and his many years of creative experience.
The afternoon workshop session provided an opportunity to exchange experiences and learn practical methods of working with books. The event was rounded off by the Mały Koneser children’s publishers’ festival and fair, which took place over the past weekend.
