Michael Rosen's Sad Book

by Michael Rosen (Author), QuentinBlake (Illustrator)

• Used

  Paperback
  2011

  $4.65

  A heartbreakingly honest account of a father's grief for his son from the illustrious pairing of two former Children's Laureates. Very occasionally the term non-fiction has to stretch itself to accommodate a book that fits into no category at all. Michael Rosen's Sad Book is such a book. It chronicles Michael's 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 wasn't 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 didn't 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 he's ever done... a moving experience.

• Used

  Paperback
  2008

  $32.74

• Used

  Hardcover
  2008

  $9.12

  We all have 'sad stuff' to deal with in life. What makes Michael Rosen most sad is thinking about his son, Eddie, who died. In this book he writes about his sadness, how it affects him, and some of the things he does to try to cope with it.

• New

  Paperback
  2011

  $9.62

  A heartbreakingly honest account of a father's grief for his son from the illustrious pairing of two former Children's Laureates. Very occasionally the term non-fiction has to stretch itself to accommodate a book that fits into no category at all. Michael Rosen's Sad Book is such a book. It chronicles Michael's 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 wasn't 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 didn't 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 he's ever done... a moving experience.