Michael Rosen
Doctor of Letters

Michael Rosen is a popular children’s author and was Children’s Laureate from 2007 to 2009. He was awarded a Doctor of Letters in recognition of his writing and broadcasting on children’s literature, his lectures on the same subject at universities across the UK and his huge contribution to engaging children in reading. Michael is author of the classic picture book, We’re going on a bear hunt, which won the Nestlé Smarties Grand Prize in 1989.

The English Association awarded Michael Rosen’s Sad Book, illustrated by Quentin Blake, an Exceptional Award for the Best Children’s Illustrated Book of 2004. He has received numerous other awards for his literature and has written for both adults and children. He is as at home talking to children as he is presenting his BBC Radio 4’s magazine programme, Word of Mouth, which focuses on the English language and its use.

He has a number of visiting professorships and has developed an MA in Children’s Literature at Birkbeck College, London. To mark our School of Education’s centenary in 2010, Michael launched a poetry book written by children from across the south-east. Me and the Teehee Monkey was the result of a collaboration between the School of Education and the partnership schools with which they work. Michael agreed to support the publication and contributed throughout the project, including helping to choose the poems and writing the foreword.