XX NATIONAL CHILDREN’S BOOK FESTIVAL
/SLIVEN, 8-10 маY 2018/
First day
From 8th to the 10th of May 2018, for the twentieth consecutive year the most fabulous, smartest, most meaningful children's holiday in Bulgaria called National Children's Book Festival was held in Sliven.
The XXth National Children's Book Festival is organized by Sava Dobroplodni Regional Library - Sliven in partnership with the Ministry of Culture, the Municipality of Sliven, the Regional Administration - Sliven, the Bulgarian Book Association, the State Agency for Bulgarians Abroad, the largest children's publishers, etc. Today, this one-of-a-kind festival is a significant cultural event with national and international prestige and has many friends outside the borders of Bulgaria. It stimulates creativity, fosters love and respect for the book. It turned into a great and favourite holiday for Bulgarian children.
The wonderful three-day holiday was organized under the patronage of Mrs. Tsveta Karayancheva - President of 44th National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria. Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the festival was the mayor of Sliven Municipality – Mr. Stefan Radev.
The festival was opened with a concert performance on May 8 at 10.00 am on the festive decorated stage of Stefan Kirov Drama Theater - Sliven with the participation of the young actors Tsveta Milenkova and Stoyan Velichkov and the talented young performers: Ivan Stoyanov and Gabriela Yordanova - the Bulgarian faces of "Children's Eurovision 2015", Martin Yordanov - winner in many national and international singing competitions, ballet dancers from Tiara ballet at the Military Club - Aitos and Barbie Ballet - Sliven, the vocal groups "Sea Sands" - Burgas and "Slaveiche" - Sliven. The festival was officially launched by Mr. Stefan Radev - Mayor of Sliven Municipality and Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the anniversary edition of the festival.
At the specially arranged book bazaar in the square in front of the municipality, the newest books for children were presented by the publishing houses Fjut, Pan, Hermes, Janet 45, Damian Yakov, Atea, Enthusiast, Uniscorp, etc. The books in the three festival days were sold with great discounts.
From 11.30am a concert under the title "Hello, our festival!" with leading actor Ivan Blagoev started on an open stage, built next to the bazaar of children's books. Children from vocal formation "Sea Sands" - Burgas and vocal group "Slaveiche" at Secondary School "Hristo Botev" - Sliven, acrobatics "Tiara" at the Military Club - Aitos and Ballet "Barbie" at the Military Club - Sliven, small talented singers from vocal group "Rhythmcheta "- Sliven took part in it.
On the first day of the festival several interesting exhibitions were opened. In Dimitar Dobrovich Gallery /13 "Tsar Osvoboditel"/ the exhibitions: Exhibition of illustrations by Damian Damyanov - winner of Konstantin Konstantinov National Award in category "Illustrator" for 2017 and Exhibition of illustrations by Petar Stanimirov at the book "The Ring of Nibelung. Book 1-4" by Elena Pavlova; in May Hall /1 "Tzar Osvoboditel" / was opened an exhibition of illustrations by Boris Stoilov at the book “The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen” by Rudolf Erich Raspe, and at 5:30 pm the exhibition of illustrations by Ralitsa Manuilova, Spas Spasov, Yasen Gyuzelev, Petar Stanimirov, Boris Stoilov, Penko Gelev, Kostadin Kostadinov and Silvia Kaloyanova was presented in the Sirak Sitnik Hall.
At 11:00 a.m. in May Hall /1 "Tzar Osvoboditel"/ an Exhibition - illustrations by Boris Stoilov at the book “The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen” by Rudolf Erich Raspe was opened. The exhibition was opened in a non-standard and entertaining way, with the special participation of the actor Lyubomir Zhelev, who played the role of the traveler loved by generations of children all over the world.
At 12:00 in Dimitar Dobrovich Gallery /13 "Tsar Osvoboditel" / an Exhibition - illustrations by Damian Damyanov - winner of Konstantin Konstantinov National Award in category "Illustrator" for 2017 was opened.
At 12.30 in the Marble Hall of Art Gallery "D. Dobrovich" also an exhibition - illustrations of Petar Stanimirov at the book "The Ring of Nibelung. Book 1-4" by Elena Pavlova was opened.
At 5:30 pm in Sirak Hall Hall a general anniversary exhibition of the winners of Konstantin Konstantinov National Award in category “Illustrator” - Ralitsa Manuilova, Spas Spasov, Yasen Giuzelev, Petar Stanimirov, Boris Stoilov, Penko Gelev , Kostadin Kostadinov and Sylvia Kaloyanova was opened. It presented new works and realized projects of artists from the period after receiving the prize.
At 1:30 pm in one of the renovated halls of Sava Dobroplodni Regional Library, the first museum of theatrical puppets of favorite literary characters made by children in the country was opened with a special ceremony. The opening band was cut by Rositsa Petrova-Vasileva - Director of Sava Dobroplodni Regional Library and organizer of the National Children's Book Festival and Stefan Radev - Mayor of Sliven Municipality and chairman of the 20th edition of the festival. The exhibition includes more than 200 puppets awarded in different editions of the competition, as the idea of the organizers is the space to be used also for creative workshops and performances.
At 2:00 pm in Sava Dobroplodni District Council, Chavdar Bozhurski, Regional Governor of Sliven district, opened a roundtable with an international participation on topic: "Balkan children's literatures and their dissemination in Europe".
Several premieres of new children's books were held during the first day of the festival.
At 11.00 am in the Chamber Hall of the Drama Theater "Stefan Kirov" the book "David" by Evgenia Voinova was presented.
Evgenia Voynova was born on 2 July 1971 in Sofia. She graduated from the Art School "Ilia Petrov" and the National Art Academy in Sofia, specialty "Poster" in Prof. Ivan Gazdov’s classes.
Since 2005 she works as an illustrator of children's books.
She illustrated an impressive series of Bulgarian folk tales by A & T
Publishing.
She is the author of three children's books - narrated and illustrated by
her: Color Matter (2012), Matthew (2013) and David (2017).
From 12.00 to 1.00 pm in the Chamber Hall of the Drama Theater "Stefan Kirov" the premiere of the book "Fairy Masters" by Vessela Flamburari was held.
From 1.00 to 2.00 pm in the Chamber Hall of the Drama Theater "Stefan Kirov" the book "Storkeliada" by Nikolay Stoyanov was presented.
At 2.00 pm, again in the Chamber Hall of the Drama Theater "Stefan Kirov", was the premiere of the book "A Tale about a Plishimura, which did not even look like a plisimura" by Asen Sirakov.
From 2:00 until 4:00 pm, there were meetings with the writers in diiferent schools of Sliven: Viktor Samuilov, Nikola Raikov, Angelina Zhekova, Kina Kudreva, Georgi Konstantinov - winners of the "Konstantin Konstantinov" National Award in categories "For overall contribution" and "Author" in different years.
At 3.00 pm in the chamber Hall of St. Kirov Drama Theater the presentation of the book "Treasures, pistols and southern seas" by the young writer Kaloyan Zahariev was held.
From 4.00 pm in “Damyan Damianov” High School of humanitarian sciences “Damyan Yakov” Publishing House presented the book "Sophie's World" by Eustaine Gorder.
At a special press conference at 4.00 pm in Sava Dobroplodni Regional Library, the jury for nominating the winners of Konstantin Konstantinov National Prize - for contribution to the children's book publishing for 2018, with the chairperson Louisa Savkova / an expert in the Ministry of Culture/, announced the media the prize in the four categories /for a entire contribution, for an author, for a publishing house, and for an illustrator/ for 2018. In the category "For entire contribution" - the prize was awarded to the beloved Bulgarian poet, writer and publisher Bozhana Apostolova; in category "author" the award was awarded to Asen Sirakov, and in category "illustrator" – to the artist Maya Bocheva. In publishing category, the award was not awarded.
At 4:30 pm in "St. Kirov" Drama Theatre an exhibition "Theatrical puppets of favorite literary characters" was opened and participants in the VIIth National Competition for making of Theatrical puppets of Favorite Literary characters - Sliven, 2018 were awarded. The contest involved over 370 children and adolescents from all over the country and from Bulgarian communities abroad, as 21 of them got awards. The names of the winners are published on the festival's website http://childbookfest.iradeum.com.
The first day of the XXth National Children's Book Festival was celebrated with a festive concert entitled "Our Dreams Wonderful we turn into Songs" on the open stage on Tsar Osvoboditel Blvd. The concert was at 5:30 pm. The program included performances of students of National School of Music and Performing Arts "Prof. P. Vladigerov" - Burgas, specialty "Pop and jazz singing" and the Club for young pop and rock performers "Rhythm" - Sliven. The children from the acrobatics sports club "Stefan Danchev" - Sliven, acrobatics "Tiara" - Aytos and ballet "Barbie" - Sliven also took part in the concert.
The musicians from the Youth Brass Band - Botevgrad, led by Konstantin Gaidarski, performed the popular melodies "I will survive" (by Gloria Gaynor), "Hot Stuff" by Donna Summer; "Smoke on the water" (by Deep Purple); "I was made" (by Kiss); "Mr. Saxo Beat" / by Alexandra Stan /; "Enter Sandman" / by Metaliica /; "Hot N Cold" by Katy Perry; and "Spring flowers".
