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Quirky Kid co-founder and publisher Leonardo Rocker was selected as Australia’s representative for the 2015 Shanghai Visiting International Publishers fellowship, strengthening Quirky Kid’s links with the international children’s publishing community.
Leonardo was shortlisted through the Australian Publishers Association and selected by the China Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair team to take part in the Shanghai Visiting International Publishers programme.
The Shanghai Visiting International Publishers programme is a specialist fellowship for publishers, editors and other children’s publishing professionals interested in the Chinese market. It combines publisher visits, professional meetings, networking and participation in the Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair.
Connecting Australian psychology publishing with China
For Quirky Kid, the fellowship provided an opportunity to present Australian-developed child psychology and educational resources within one of Asia’s most important children’s publishing markets.
The visit included meetings with Chinese publishers and booksellers, professional exchange with international publishers and participation in the Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair.
Leonardo also joined a panel exploring how mobile devices and new technology were changing the way children interact with educational and publishing content. The discussion brought Quirky Kid’s child psychology perspective into a broader conversation about digital learning and children’s media.
A connection that led to a later publishing collaboration
The Shanghai visit became more than a one-off international engagement. During the fair, Leonardo met So-Shan Au, then a senior international education publisher with Hodder Education.
That professional connection later developed into a publishing collaboration between Quirky Kid and Hodder Education UK. The organisations went on to create a collection of wellbeing and social-emotional learning titles for the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme.
Read more about Quirky Kid’s later collaboration with Hodder Education.
Part of Quirky Kid’s international publishing history
The Shanghai fellowship came during a period of growing international activity for Quirky Kid’s publishing arm, alongside participation in the Bologna, Frankfurt and London book fairs and recognition for programs including The Best of Friends® and Power Up!.
It remains an important milestone because it helped connect Quirky Kid’s psychology, publishing and digital work with international publishers and education organisations at an early stage of the organisation’s growth.
