The poet and children's novelist Michael Rosen, the former Children's Laureate of the United Kingdom, is a force of nature. A good starting point for your youngster is We're Going On A Bear Hunt. My friends at the Eric Carle agreed with me about Mr. Rosen. The Carle had already featured Quentin Blake's art from Michael Rosen's Sad Book at their museum. I was very happy when Nick Clark and The Carle agreed to showcase art work from Mr. Rosen's only YA illustrated novel The Golem Of Old Prague for my show Monsters and Miracles. In 1997, a version of the book was published by Five Leaves Press with illustrations by Baruch Simons.
Ross Bradshaw, the genius behind Five Leaves has an incredible story and is a truly nice soul to boot. Check out his website at http://www.fiveleaves.co.uk/. Mr. Bradshaw has always been very supportive of my ideas (starting with my attempts to bring an Isaac Bashevis Singer exhibition to the United Kingdom). He immediately embraced my efforts to have republished Academy Award winner Frederic Raphael's masterpiece Lindmann. Ross also helped me in the process of tracking down Mr. Rosen and Mr. Simons. From the popular to the obscure, Ross follows his own heart to unearth or republish some great books including a few collections of Michael Rosen's early poetry.
I was honored that Mr. Rosen accepted our invitation to visit the Eric Carle Museum on November 6, 2010. Mr. Rosen participated in an amazing talk with former National Ambassador for Young People's Literature Katherine Paterson.
Prior to his visit to the States I asked Mr. Rosen about his interest in the legend of the Golem. He told me:
The history of Jews in Europe is a complex one and when I came across the Golem stories, I became fascinated by the ways in which they talked of how the Jewish minority (and perhaps any minority) survives. It seemed to me that even though the stories have the simplicity of folk stories, as a whole they conveyed some of the complexity. In particular, I loved the mix in tone that the stories convey: wit, cunning, fear, eeriness, wisdom, fallibility, mystery, magic and more. In my retelling, I created dialogue and inner thought to give the stories a little more body, a little more of realism than was in the tellings I drew on. I wanted readers to feel the power of the confrontations that occur throughout the story-cycle.
Thank you Mr. Rosen for supporting my exhibition. We look forward to your next tour of the USA.
