Michael Rosen's Sad Book

This is 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'. Michael Rosen's "Sad Book", which has sold over 125,000 copies in hardback, won the Exceptional Book category at the English 4-11 Book Awards for the Best Books, the Smarties Book Prize 6-8 Category Bronze Award and was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal.