It also describes how Rosen found his despair lifting and how he was able to deal with his grief and think about the good times he had with his son. He is currently Professor of Children’s Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London where he co-devised and teaches critical approaches to reading on an MA in Children’s Literature, having done the same at Birkbeck, University of London.

I am a counsellor and would strongly recommend this book to help people get in touch with their grief. During his time in the role, he celebrated children's books and children's book illustration with a range of projects and exhibitions, and conceived the idea for the House of Illustration, the world's first centre dedicated to the art of illustration in all its forms.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 . He is also the winner of the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration and in 1990 was voted 'The Illustrator's Illustrator' by Observer Magazine.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. 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. With emotional elegance and nuance, he welcomes and unpicks each layer of mourning and explains why it’s ok to be sad. He has won many major prizes for illustration, including the Kate Greenaway Medal (1980) and the Red House Children's Book Award (1981) for Mister Magnolia. The book frequently uses a disconnection between text and image to communicate the complex feelings of grief.I've endured a boatload of grief and disappointment as each member of my family has passed to the great beyond and there are no other relatives.

The Daily Telegraph considered whether it was suitable for children, and felt that parents would need to use the book as a stimulus for discussion and have to explain some of its ideas.

A tireless promoter of children's literature – and a long-time collaborator with roald Dahl – Quentin Blake was awarded the OBE in 1988 and in 2005 he was awarded a CBE for services to Children's Literature.