Honor in Bologna

Children's publishing, one of the fastest growing segments of the business, grew at 29 per cent in 2016, and at 22 per cent in 2017.

As for China, industry expert Hai Fei says China annually publishes 44,000 types of children's books, adding that the number of total titles currently available is more than 300,000.

"We have a market of 367 million readers, making it a business worth at least 14 billion yuan ($2.2 billion), " says Hai.

Li says that international cooperation and a large overseas market for Chinese titles is pushing the country to produce more original books.

Bologna is also evidence of how Chinese children's publishing has changed in the past decade.

Li says that in 2007, Chinese publishers couldn't do much business there.

"You have to buy and sell to make a trade happen. And then Chinese publishers just had little to sell."