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| From
the March/April 2008 issue of The Horn Book Magazine Foreign Correspondence
Michael Rosen is the fifth person to be appointed Britain’s children’s laureate. The idea for the position grew out of a conversation between prolific children’s author Michael Morpurgo and the then poet laureate, Ted Hughes. They conceived it as a cross between an ambassadorial role and a lifetime achievement award. The government agreed to fund the biennial post with a stipend of £10,000. The first children’s laureate, appointed in 1999, was illustrator Quentin Blake, followed by author Anne Fine, Morpurgo, and, most recently, Jacqueline Wilson. In addition to a lecture series that goes along with the job, each laureate has initiated a campaign, lasting the duration of their tenure, in support of reading for pleasure. The lectures themselves have been almost incidental to the laureate’s workload, for to date the award has gone to writers and illustrators who have been prolific not just in their literary output but in their many public appearances at schools and literary festivals. Inevitably, anyone taking on the role of children’s laureate is expected to comment on any and every news item with even a vague connection to children’s literature. Not everyone wants to be an official spokesperson, though, and some otherwise likely candidates feel unable to put themselves in the public eye for two years for whatever reason. This makes choosing a laureate rather more complicated than simply picking the person with the most votes. Nominations are received from organizations concerned with children’s books and from children themselves, and then a shortlist is drawn up. At that stage, delicate behind-the-scenes negotiations take place to avoid the potential embarrassment of announcing a winner who then says, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Most of the media appearances by the first four laureates have been, rather predictably, to do with children’s books. Not so with Michael Rosen. He is the host of Word of Mouth, a series on BBC Radio 4 exploring aspects of the spoken word. He is an outspoken socialist and (Jewish) anti-Zionist and regularly publishes letters in the left-wing national newspaper The Guardian, often on education issues but also on international politics. He has a Ph.D. and teaches a children’s literature class in an English master’s program. In recent years he has written three volumes of autobiographical poetry for adults, and Penguin has published his selected poems — that’s Penguin, not Puffin, the children’s imprint. Unlike many children’s authors, Rosen doesn’t have to convince anyone that his views are worth listening to. Perhaps that’s why his appointment yielded extensive, high-profile coverage ranging from a cover feature in The Guardian magazine to the lead item on the BBC’s highbrow current affairs TV show Newsnight. It was news that a new children’s laureate had been chosen; that the appointee was Rosen was what made it headline news. During the selection process for the first four children’s laureates the same names, including Rosen’s, kept cropping up on the nomination forms, so it was pretty much a matter of time before the award came his way. The poet is a fierce critic of the way literature is taught in the classroom and of the increasing amount, and nature, of testing in schools. Therefore, even up to a couple of years ago, there was some concern that the government might not approve of funding an appointee who so publicly criticizes its policies. Thankfully, such fears have proved unfounded: the government was content to let the independent selection panel do its job. And part of the reason many people professionally involved with children’s books were so cheered by his appointment was because of his very outspokenness about the state of education, his belief in the importance of reading for pleasure, and his horror at the reduction of literature in schools to snippets of text and prescriptive interpretations of poetry. Rosen says the things others are thinking; unlike many, he doesn’t have to worry about political retribution before opening his mouth. As an author, Rosen has written in various genres and for a range of age groups. His numerous picture books include This Is Our House and his latest, Bear’s Day Out, as well as successful retellings of Little Rabbit Foo Foo and We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, which was a 1990 Boston Globe–Horn Book honor book. He has written books about Dickens and Shakespeare and edited collections of poetry and humorous stories. His novels for middle-grade readers, You’re Thinking about Doughnuts and You’re Thinking about Tomatoes, are probably his most overtly political works for children, touching on Britain’s colonial past. He is a master of nonsense verse, but it is his autobiographical prose poetry that is Rosen’s greatest contribution to children’s literature. Initially inspired by James Joyce and Carl Sandburg, Rosen quickly found his own voice, writing about his childhood from a child’s perspective. His style was closer to everyday speech than to poetry, his milieu the ordinary London suburbs. I was walking home from school After the rural idylls described by earlier British poets for children such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Rosen’s work came as a breath of fresh air. Some appreciated it immediately, with both John Rowe Townsend and Brian Alderson praising the new poet in national newspapers. After Mind Your Own Business (1974) came equally acclaimed collections including You Can’t Catch Me! (1981), Quick, Let’s Get Out of Here (1983), Don’t Put Mustard in the Custard (1985), and You Wait Till I’m Older than You! (1996). It was only after he was well established that some began to complain that his work somehow wasn’t “proper” poetry, that it took free verse to an unwelcome extreme. The detractors, though, were in a small minority; most preferred to judge what Rosen calls his “paragraphs” on their own terms. As for child readers, they like Rosen’s work and they like the man, too, both on paper and in person. The essence of his personality comes across in anecdotes about his childhood, the memorable friendships in and out of school, the antics that drove his father to distraction, the glimpses of family life with his own children Joe and Eddie. It was Eddie’s death that Rosen subsequently wrote about with such raw honesty in Michael Rosen’s Sad Book and the volume of poetry for adults, Carrying the Elephant. Rosen’s schedule of appearances at schools
and literary events is full months in advance, and this is no surprise.
His performances — in which poetry is delivered with impeccable
comedic A champion of diversity in all its forms, Rosen’s other pet project for his laureateship is a poetry road show entitled “Diverse Verse for All.” He wants it to encompass everyone from John Agard to Benjamin Zephaniah, along the way taking in poets such as Roger McGough and even those who can’t be there in person, like Robert Louis Stevenson. When Rosen gave his first official lecture as children’s laureate he began by playing the role of a teacher giving a lesson on Walter de la Mare’s poem The Listeners. He read out the poem, then said, “The first things I’d like you to do are: 1. Identify the poetic techniques in the poem. 2. Do a syllabic count. 3. Answer this question: Are there any similarities with the ballad poem we read last week?” Laughter from the audience, then: “Next I’ve got a couple of comprehension questions for you: 1. Who is the traveler? 2. Who are the listeners? Then I want you to look at the structure of the poem and answer these questions: 1. What happens in the poem? 2. Where does one section end and the next begin? And finally I want you to: 1. Look at the words in the poem which describe sounds. 2. Write down in which sections of the poem there are noises and in which silence.” Rosen then took a closer look at the questions, demonstrating why such a method of teaching is bound to turn children off poetry and excoriating an education system that would require such questions to be asked in the first place. “Poetry is a kind of writing that refuses to be tied down,” he said. “Very often, there just isn’t enough stuff there for us to make the definitive statement. What’s more, the very act of trying to wring this statement out of the poem — or worse — out of children, is anti-poem. It runs against the grain of the poetic impulse, which more often than not, is an impulse to suggest, imply, hint, infer and to withhold even as it reveals.” He ended, appropriately, with a new poem of his own: Take the thing into your hands Has anything started to come through When you get tired of all this Some of the things that came inside If you’ve liked doing all this Well, well, well.
From the March/April 2008 issue of The Horn Book Magazine |
he
event to inaugurate Britain’s new Children’s Laureate
was quite a glamorous affair, with a surprising number of gatecrashers
appearing at the door of BAFTA, the British Academy of Film and
Television Arts, home of the British Academy Awards. They were turned
away politely, and although most went quietly, some did not. The
assembled teachers, librarians, academics, journalists, booksellers,
and assorted others dressed for the occasion, but, never one to
stand on ceremony, the as-yet-unannounced guest of honor showed
up in a T-shirt and slightly scruffy trousers. When the new children’s
laureate was revealed to be the poet Michael Rosen, a cheer went
up in the crowded room. The reaction to the announcement was indicative
not only of the level of warmth toward Rosen himself but also of
a feeling that his tenure in the post would be exciting —
even edgy — with the potential to take the laureateship to
new heights. 
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