The China Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair (CCBF) is glad to announce the 70 Finalists selected in the 2025 Golden Pinwheel Young Illustrators Competition. Those 69 shortlisted artworks are composed with 50 of Book Publishing Category and 19 of Commercial Category.
Already at its 10th edition, Golden Pinwheel aims to give recognition to young talented artists active in the field of children’s book illustration. Since 2023, the organising committee launched a new category—Commercial, in addition to the original submission category—Book Publishing, so as to encourage illustrators to demonstrate their commercial value through diversified forms of artistic expression, and to promote communication and cooperation with illustrators and brands, advertisers.
Throughout the summer, the Jury composed of 8 international experts—A Geng (China), Namjung Kim (Republic of Korea), Alessandro Sanna (Italy), Leo Timmers (Belgium),Wei Ling (China) as Book Publishing juries, Steven Guarnaccia (USA), Li Min (China), Birthe Steinbeck (Germany) as Commercial juries —reviewed 2,828 entries using a shared online system and finalised their selection via digital conference.
From China to USA, Russia to Iran, the finalists represent 21 countries and territories from six continents. This shows the sheering vitality of the global illustration arena. Also, we can’t but be filled with astonishment by the very young age of the shortlisted artists, the youngest finalist being just 21. Undoubtedly, the future of illustration is assured!
2025 Finalists (in alphabetical order):
The 69 finalists' artworks will be exhibited at the 2025 Golden Pinwheel Exhibition held at the China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair from 14 to 16 November. In addition, their works will be featured in the 2025 Golden Pinwheel Yearbook to be published in November and distributed among all the Fair’s exhibitors and partners.
The complete finalist works will be available online on the competition's official website starting November 5th. Online voting for the "Audiences' Choice Award (Book Publishing)" will also begin the same day and continue until the first day of CCBF on November 14th. Online viewers, in-person attendees, exhibitors, media, and partners will be able to vote. The top-voted finalist work will be awarded the Audiences' Choice Award (Book Publishing). The winners of all awards will be announced during the fair.
Even more exciting is that the organizing committee will select one of the winning illustrators to create the key visual art for the 2026 China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair. This key visual will be featured throughout the fair's communications throughout the coming year, becoming a key symbol of CCBF.
