Ian Waller and his family enjoy an audience with one of Britain’s literary gems
Michael Rosen is a national treasure and it was such a joy to welcome him back to Bath as a guest of The Bath Children’s Literature Festival.
From his wonderful books and poems, from We’re Going On A Bear Hunt and Chats With Cats, right up to his new collection Out Of This World, Michael Rosen has that special gift of producing stories and observations that children love and parents and carers love to read to them.
His latest visit to Bath saw him entertaining a full house at the Forum Bath with tales of his life and readings from his new book, all the while perfectly catching the tone of the audience and effortlessly encouraging everyone to join in with the noises, readings and actions.
Along the way we discover that Rosen was born back in the stone age, which came just before the potato age, the tomato age and indeed the chair age. It also turns out that his brother is a fossil, dresses in a bear skin bikini and lives in caves under the Natural History Museum.
We also learn about his school days when things were so strict that you weren’t allowed to breath in some lessons and had to take secret gasps behind the fold up tops of your desks.
Yes, Michael Rosen is a bit silly, but he’s also delightfully engaging, teaching the whole hall a new poem – complete with actions and requests for all of the dads to join in too – in a way that was shown to him by the great Benjamin Zephaniah, before sharing readings from his new book and passing on how he became a worldwide meme because of the way he said ‘nice’…
This was our first visit to the 2024 edition of The Bath Children’s Literature Festival and we can’t wait to enjoy more of the fantastic line-up on offer. Over the next few days there’s the chance to meet Ben Miller, enjoy a creative writing masterclass with Liz Flanagan, make a supersonic Beano comic and just loads, loads, loads more.
For full details of upcoming events, go to https://bathfestivals.org.uk/childrens-literature/whats-on/