Michael Rosen’s Sad Book

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Michael Rosen is an eminent writer, broadcaster, poet, performer and received the Eleanor Farjeon Award for services to children's literature in 1997. In 2007 he became Children's Laureate. Quentin Blake was the very first Children's Laureate. One of the world's foremost illustrators, he has won numerous awards for his books and is most well-known for his work with Roald Dahl.

A heartbreakingly honest account of a fathers grief for his son from the illustrious pairing of two former Childrens Laureates. A heartbreakingly honest account of a fathers grief for his son from the illustrious pairing of two former Childrens Laureates. Very occasionally the term non-fiction has to stretch itself to accommodate a book that fits into no category at all. Michael Rosens Sad Book is such a book. It chronicles Michaels grief at the death of his son Eddie from meningitis at the age of 19. A moving combination of sincerity and simplicity, it acknowledges that sadness is not always avoidable or reasonable and perfects the art of making complicated feelings plain. It wasnt made like any other book either; Michael Rosen said of the text, " I wrote it at a moment of extreme feeling and it went straight down onto the page ... Quentin didnt illustrate it, he realized it. He turned the text into a book and as a result showed me back to myself. No writer could ask and get more than that." And Quentin Blake says that the picture of Michael "being sad but trying to look happy" is the most difficult drawing hes ever done... "a moving experience."

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