Biography
A prolific children’s book author and broadcaster, Michael Rosen lives in London. He attended Middlesex Hospital Medical School for a year before transferring to Waldham College, Oxford University, to study English. Rosen’s first book of children’s poetry was the 1974 Mind Your Own Business, illustrated by Quentin Blake. Through his writing and teaching and as an editor of anthologies, he has helped to make poetry accessible to children.
Rosen’s books include You Can’t Catch Me (1982), winner of the Signal Poetry Award, and We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (1989), illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, which received a number of prestigious awards: the School Library Journal Best Book of the Year; a Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Award; Nestlé Children’s Book Prize; and a Mainichi Newspapers Japanese Picture Book Award, Outstanding Picture Book from Abroad.
Often writing in a humorous and honest vein, Rosen has also addressed bereavement, particularly in Sad Book (2004), winner of the Exceptional Award for the Best Children’s Illustrated Books of 2004 (4 to 11 range), and in the prose poem collection Carrying the Elephant: A Memoir of Love and Loss (2002) about his son’s death from meningitis.
Rosen was the 2007–2009 Waterstone’s children’s laureate; he regularly visits schools to read his poetry and has taught children’s literature at the university level. Recently, he was heard on the BBC’s Word of Mouth program about the English language.
