Cao Wenxuan (M), children's literature writer [Photo provided to China Daily]

Chinese and Western professionals in the world of children's publishing on Wednesday discussed collaboration projects here at the Bologna Children's Book Fair in Italy after Chinese writer Cao Wenxuan's win of the Hans Christian Andersen Prize.

Cao on Monday became the first Chinese author to ever win the prize, which is awarded by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) and is considered as the highest international recognition in the field of children's literature.

Martin Salisbury, a professor of Cambridge School of Art, and also an illustrator and author, said Chinese picture books - books whose pictures are very well integrated together to tell the story - have a great future ahead.

"Chinese picture books are graphically very exciting," Salisbury said at a round table held at the fair. It will be interesting to see what happens with the Chinese graphic traditions enriched by new forms of visual authorship, he said.

The world of picture books, he added, opens up new collaboration opportunities also on the education side for Britain and China to learn from each other.

Every year China features several thousands of children's books, and many of them exert huge influence, said Li Yan, Vice President of China Publishing Group, whose Chinese Story Seeds & World's Illustration Flowers series has published Cao's works.

"A few years ago we launched the project of the Chinese Story Seeds & World's Illustration Flowers. We hoped that using illustrated books with this approach, we could better connect China's storytellers and illustrations from other countries so to promote the interchange and collaboration between Chinese publishing groups and other major publishing groups abroad," he said.