Digital narratives are transforming in significant ways how young readers engage with stories. Interactive picture books, transmedia storytelling, immersive experiences, as well as AI co-created texts, are reshaping the ways stories are read, experienced, and shared. This goes beyond a simple proliferation of technological formats; it represents a cultural shift that is reconfiguring both narrative forms and the reader's role itself within the reading experience.
As Marshall McLuhan observed, new media never simply supplement older ones, nor do they leave them unchanged - they continuously reshape their forms and positions. Today, digital and multimedia are not replacing the traditional book but redefining its role, distributing the reading experience across new languages and practices.
The question, then, is no longer whether digital has entered the field of children’s and young people’s storytelling, but according to which technological or literary logics it is evolving. What does it mean to read a story on digital platforms? What forms do these new narratives take? How do they engage the reader through participation, exploration, and co-creation? And above all: how can we recognise the quality of a digital narrative work beyond technological innovation or the appeal of interactivity?
The Digital Narratives Observatory was created to address these questions. It is a project promoted by Literacy Italia and the Bologna Children's Book Fair, in collaboration with Norwegian Literature Abroad and with the support of Italian Trade Agency and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, with the aims of: to observe and map the characteristics of emerging digital narrative forms; to foster dialogue between research, publishing, and educational practice; and to provide orientation tools and evaluative frameworks for those who create, publish, promote, and teach stories in an increasingly digital context.
The Observatory was thus created to propose a shift in perspective: while discussions on digital narratives tend to focus on the medium, it instead places the reader at the centre. Based on international literature and the analysis of the BolognaRagazzi CrossMedia Awards archive, the Report identifies four modes of digital storytelling - Media-Enhanced Reading, Traversing, Inhabiting, and Co-Creating - which differ in the degree of agency offered to the reader, from receiving the story to co-creating it with the author. This space represents an opportunity for publishers willing to position themselves in a still underexplored area, leading towards an integrated system of narrative worlds in which each element contributes to advancing the story.
The event took place at the Bologna Children's Book Fair 2026 (15–16 April). Two days of sessions with researchers, authors, publishers, educators, reading professionals, and representatives of the European Commission explored digital narrative ecosystems and reading practices in the age of artificial intelligence. The first Report of the Digital Narratives Observatory was presented in preview and now offers guidance for navigating a rapidly evolving sector: between February and March 2026, the Observatory conducted a survey among Bologna Children's Book Fair exhibitors (121 children’s publishers participated: 62.8% from Europe, 11.6% from Latin America, 11.6% from Asia, 7.4% from North America, with contributions from other regions), providing an informative snapshot of how the sector is positioning itself - not as a field resisting change, but as one actively seeking pathways forward.
(Training and certificate of participation recognized by the Italian Ministry of Education - MIM)
A project promoted by Literacy Italia and the Bologna Children’s Book Fair
