So They Call You Pisher!: A Memoir

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The Missing also contains an excellent selection of recommended fiction, picture book and non-fiction reading about World War Two and the Holocaust, as well as books with themes of refugees and displacement more widely. Busby, Mattha (23 May 2020). "Author Michael Rosen out of intensive care after 47 days". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 5 June 2020 . Retrieved 5 June 2020.

Award-winning children's author joins Goldsmiths". Goldsmiths. 4 November 2013. Archived from the original on 4 November 2013 . Retrieved 24 December 2013. Styles, Morag (July 1988). "Authorgraph No 51 – Michael Rosen". Books for Keeps: The Children's Book Magazine (51). Archived from the original on 12 January 2016 . Retrieved 22 January 2016.Our Supporters". Republic.org. Archived from the original on 31 May 2009 . Retrieved 27 November 2012.

They talk about the talking cure. Well, there is a sort of doing cure, too.’ The photo of Rosen’s son Eddie, who died unexpectedly in 1999, at the age of just 18. Photograph: Pål Hansen/The Observer Bearn, Emily (16 November 2008). "A novel approach to the classroom". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 20 May 2013.

Career

Rosen’s poems for children always see the world from their perspective and can be counted on to induce giggles – “‘Don’t throw fruit at a computer’ / ‘You what?’” – especially when performed by the poet himself: he doesn’t have 98m YouTube views for nothing. He is learning to adapt to virtual school visits, “a kind of informal telly”, zooming into the camera with one eye: “then my dad came in and said ...” He has written more than 200 books and counting, including greedily devoured favourites Chocolate Cake, Fluff the Farting Fish and Monster. His most recent books for adults include The Missing, an investigation into the fates of his European Jewish relatives during the second world war, and his 2017 memoir So They Call You Pisher!, a lively account of growing up the son of Jewish communists in postwar Pinner: “Not the most encouraging place to start a branch of a political organisation aimed at world revolution.” Then there are the two books he wrote in response to the death of his second son Eddie (he has five children, including Eddie, and two stepchildren) from meningitis when he was 18 just over 20 years ago: Carrying the Elephant, a mixture of prose and poetry, and Michael Rosen’s Sad Book, illustrated by Blake. “I loved him very, very much,” Rosen writes, “but he died anyway.” Rosen likes to say he is ‘recovering’ rather than ‘recovered’. Covid has left him with a hearing aid in one ear, dizziness and breathlessness

Rosen’s first children’s book, Mind Your Own Business (1974), was a collection of poems. It included drawings by Quentin Blake, who also illustrated Roald Dahl’s books. Some of his other poetry collections are You Wait Till I’m Older Than You (1996) and Bananas in My Ears (2011). Many of his poems are about his life between the ages of 2 and 12. In 2021, Rosen received the annual J.M. Barrie Lifetime Achievement Award from the charity Action for Children's Arts, "in recognition of his tremendous work championing the arts for children as well as his achievements as a performer and author." The poem’s narrator is undoubtedly a loving father, yet he is also one who has uncertainties and makes mistakes (‘I take him into our bed […] What a stupid thing to do’), and displays a mixture of love and irritation: ‘Those toes are going / wiggle wiggly wiggly […] So by the time I get up […] I’m very tired and very cross.’When Michael Rosen was a child, there were family stories about great aunts and great uncles in France and Poland who were there before the war and not there afterwards. When the young Michael asked what happened, his family would reply that they didn't know. How could it be that people could just disappear? In April 2010, Rosen was given the Fred and Anne Jarvis Award from the National Union of Teachers for "campaigning for education". In July 2010 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Nottingham Trent University. We will all go through hardships in our lives, whether it’s a job loss, money worries, a bereavement, a relationship ending, an illness etc. And this book instils such hope that I think it would do the world some good if everyone had a copy. Galton, Bridget (30 June 2023). "Muswell Hill poet Michael Rosen wins PEN Pinter prize". Times Series. Rosen was born into a Jewish family in Harrow, Middlesex, with roots in what is now Poland, Russia, and Romania and connections to the Arbeter Ring and the Bund.

Rosen's mother, Connie (née Isakofsky; 1920–1976), worked as a secretary at the Daily Worker and later as a primary school teacher and training college lecturer. She had attended Central Foundation Girls' School, where she made friends such as Bertha Sokoloff. She met Harold in 1935, when both were aged 15, as they were both members of the Young Communist League. They participated in the Battle of Cable Street together. As a young couple, they settled in Pinner, Middlesex. They left the Communist Party in 1957. Rosen never joined, but his parents' activities influenced his childhood. For example, their acquaintance with the bohemian literary figure Beatrice Hastings made an impression on him as a child. [5] [8]

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Rosen, Michael (4 March 2006). "What's a story for?". Socialist Worker (1990). Archived from the original on 21 March 2006. Rosen is the author of 140 books of poetry and prose, and is our former Children’s Laureate. He is tall and lanky; when he sits down at his desk it is like watching a long piece of paper fold itself into creases. It’s more than two years since he left hospital after a near-lethal battle with Covid. And though while in hospital nurses shaved his jaw clean, now his beard has returned and so has his good humour, so that he more closely resembles the Rosen people know: scruffy, daffy, softly playful. From 1969-1972, he was a trainee at the BBC, working in radio drama, and on Play School and Schools Television. He then spent three years at the National Film School, publishing his first book of poetry, Mind Your Own Business, in 1974. This book was not originally written for children, but appeared on Deutsch's children's list, and from that point on, his career was set. Since 1976, he has been writing, performing, teaching, and appearing on radio and television. He also writes regularly for The Guardian.