Michael Rosen

Introduction

Michael Wayne Rosen is a British children's novelist and a well-known character in the children's book field for what he does as a writer, entertainer, presenter, and playwright. He has remained engaged with over 140 volumes as a writer and by choosing other authors' works for collections. He gives university lectures and classes on literature for kids, reading, and composition. Michael is a recognizable face to BBC viewers, and he is presently hosting Word of Mouth, a magazine show on the English language and how we use it.

He takes his one-man performance to classrooms to inspire students with his love of reading and poetry. He was one of the primary poets to make trips to schools in the United Kingdom, and he additionally traveled to schools all around the world. In the month of June 2007, he was named the fifth Children's Laureate, following Jacqueline Wilson, and he held the position until 2009.

Michael Rosen's Early Life

Michael Wayne Rosen was born on the 7^th of May the year 1946, inside a Jewish household in Harrow, Middlesex. His forefathers were Jews from what currently comprises Romania, Poland, along Russia and their lineage was affiliated with The Labour Circle as well as the Jewish Labour Bund. Wayne C. Booth, a literary critic placed with his dad at Shrivenham American University, inspired his middle name. Rosen's father, Harold was born in Brockton, Massachusetts, to a Communist family and moved to the Eastern End of England when he was just two years old, after his mom relocated to the nation of her origin. In 1935, he encountered Connie Isakofsky, the future spouse who was Rosen's mother, Connie, was a Daily Worker clerk, while being a member of the Young Communist League. Harold taught secondary school before becoming a professor of literature at the College of Education in London, while Connie taught elementary school before becoming a training college lecturer and BBC broadcaster. She convinced her kid to write for a poetry series she was producing, and she utilized some of the pieces he contributed.

In 1957, they resigned from the Communist Party. Rosen did not join the team, but his parents' actions had an impact on him as a youngster. As a kid, he was influenced by their association with the eccentric literary character Beatrice Hastings. Rosen began to attend Harrow Weald County Grammar School when he was about 11 years old. He studied Pinner Harrow public schools, and he also attended Watford Grammar School for Boys. In the year 1964, he was also a guest student at Winchester College, which he remembers warmly.

He transferred to a different school when he was 17 years old. This was the moment when Michael realized he wanted to pursue a career as a doctor. He went to the Middlesex Hospital Medical School after finishing high school. Nevertheless, after pursuing this professional path, he realized that the medical field was not for him. So he switched his major to the study of English literature and language at Oxford University, which he adored! Although he hadn't been learning, he spent much of his free time at university composing, performing in, and producing plays. He also became interested in pushing for reform, rights, and liberties at this period. Rosen subsequently went to school in the course of the 1990s to pursue a Master of Arts degree and a PhD in children's literature writing. He subsequently worked for the BBC until the organization fired him, after which he has been an independent writer, broadcaster, educator, and entertainer since the year 1972. Most of his works have been written for youngsters, although that was not always the case. He stated, "Somewhere between the ages of twelve and thirteen when I started to get the impression that I enjoyed writing, that I liked attempting out various kinds of writing, that I attempted to compose satirical poems regarding people I knew ."

Michael Rosen Career

Michael Rosen started to write poems at the age of twelve, producing humorous poems regarding individuals he knew. Both of his parents were teachers and prominent educators. They were of Jewish East End heritage. with parents and grandparents from Poland, he attended several public schools in Pinner, Harrow, as well as Watford, and at the age of sixteen, he had become a voracious reader of poetry, particularly DH Lawrence's poetry.

He began writing 'deadly serious' poetry regarding stuff he did before he was a teenager, about females, and what he termed 'nature.' Gerard Manley Hopkins' writings were exposed to him in the sixth form. While he attempted to compose himself in a similar style, he claims that the outcomes were "unfathomable and very monotonous."Michael spent a year at Middlesex Hospital Medical School before transferring to Wadham College, Oxford, to study English. At the University of Oxford, he began to achieve his dream of becoming an actor. Michael expanded his search beyond the specified literature to include popular working-class ballads. He still enjoys street riddles, popular music, and folk tales.

The majority of Michael's novels are aimed at young ones, however, he began his career as a graduate assistant with the BBC after finishing from Wadham College, Oxford, in 1969. Among the things he performed while working in the 1970s included airing an episode entitled WALRUS on BBC Schools television. He additionally wrote the script for the reading for kids series Sam on Boff's Island.

Mind Your Own Business, his initial collection of literature for children was released in the year 1974. Rosen gained prominence through his volumes of funny poems for kids, such as Wouldn't You Like to Know, You Tell Me, and Quick Let's Get Out of Here.

Rosen was essential in increasing children's availability of writing, both via his own poetry and by means of notable collections that included Culture Shock. He became one of the initial writers to tour schools in the United Kingdom, as well as in Australia, Canada, and Singapore. His trips continue to inspire and involve students in contemporary poetry.

His works for young readers comprise fictional and illustrated books such as Michael Rosen's Sad Book,

• Totally Wonderful Miss Plumberry.
• Mustard, Custard, Grumble Belly, and Gravy.
• We're Going On a Bear Hunt.
• Quick Let's Get Out of Here.
• You Wait Until I'm Older Than You.
• Lunch Boxes Don't Fly.
• Uncle Billy Being Silly.
• No Breathing in Class.

He also served as editor of several children's collections, notably The Kingfisher Book of Children's Poetry, Poems for the Very Young, Classic Poetry, and has authored two non-fiction volumes for children on Shakespeare and Dickens. His adult nonfiction, comprises books for instructors like Did I Hear You Write?. He additionally recently released three autobiographies, Carrying the Elephant, This Is Not My Nose, as well as In the Colonie, which he revised and expanded for a collection of Collected Poems.

Rosen has a total ofthree marriages, a total of 5 kids, and 2 step-children. Eddie, his second child, passed at the tender age of 18 due to meningococcal septicaemia, and his demise inspired Rosen's 2004 book Sad Book. Rosen and his third spouse, Emma-Louise Williams, have two daughters and reside in North London.

Michael Rosen has written and presented for the BBC's radio stations three and four as well as the BBC Global Service, which includes the Treasure Islands, Best Words, Meridian Books, Word of Mouth programs. For the entire series On Saying Goodbye, he received a Sony Radio Gold Prize. He has composed and given numerous single radio documentary films, such as histories of the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Joan Littlewood, Bertolt Brecht, Maurice Sendak, Le Corbusier, and 'Dr. Seuss', as well as programs on the aftermath of the Second World War, the German youth movement, the Edelweisspiraten, Oxford University fantasy writers, Robert Browning's 'Pied Piper,' unpublished works of poetry of Ogden Nash.

He enjoys "writing fragments and then piecing them together," a technique he compares to "making a picture out of different colors and shapes." It is visible from a distance. It appears." When a nearby patient in treatment is told his urine is dark, Rosen deadpans "the times are dark"; on the following page, with barely a beat in between, comes the darkest of poems, "I know death," in which Rosen unsparingly describes his mother's final moments, before finding Eddie.

Michael Rosen In Covid

Michael Rosen became critically ill from COVID-19, frequently referred to as coronavirus, in the month of March 2020. He ended up in an extended coma for a period of forty days and remained in critical care for about 48 days. When he awoke, he realized that he was extremely incapacitated and unable to move. This required him to learn to operate a mobility device and relearn how to walk. After some treatment and assistance from the hospital's physicians and nurses, Michael was able to take steps again with the use of a stick for balance, which quickly became his greatest friend. He eventually got to the point where he didn't need the stick at all and could move around on his own. Motivated by what he experienced, Michael chose to create a work of literature about his closest buddy and strolling stick, Slippery, and all of the excellent medical personnel who looked for him. The title of the novel is Sticky McStickstick.

Michael Rosen Awards And Achievements

Rosen was named the sixth British Children's Laureate in the month of June 2007, following Jacqueline Wilson, and maintained the position till the end of 2009, after which he was replaced by Anthony Browne. The University of Exeter bestowed an honorary degree upon him in 2007.

Rosen was awarded a doctorate of honor from the Tavistock as well as Portman NHS Trust and the University of East London at the beginning of 2008. In the month of November 2008, he was awarded an honorary master's degree and the Chevalier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres at the French ambassador's home in London. Rosen received the National Union of Teachers' Fred Anne Jarvis Award for "campaigning for education" in the month of April 2010. Nottingham Trent University bestowed a doctorate of divinity on him in the summer of 2010.

Rosen received an honorary doctorate from the Institute of Education, University of London, in April 2011, then an honorary doctorate from the University of the West of England in the month of July 2011. Rosen was chosen to direct the 2013 Brighton Festivalas an invited director. Rosen was awarded the annual J.M. Barrie Lifetime Achievement Prize by the organization Action for Children's Arts in 2021 "in recognition of his outstanding contributions to promoting the arts for kids in addition to his accomplishments as a performer and writer." Rosen received an honorary fellowship from the Royal College of Nursing in the year 2022 by a deserving and majority vote of the RCN Council throughout the organization's annual congress, with RCN President Dr. Denise Chaffer using Rosen's personal experience, support for patients, and underway COVID-19 promotion work as contributing factors.