The story he uncovered was one of terrible persecution - and it has inspired his poetry for years since. Goldilocks and her little dog are off on an adventure, looking for that house again – the one with the chairs, the porridge and beds. When Michael was growing up, stories often hung in the air about his great-uncles: one was a clock-mender and the other a dentist. And as soon as he could, he began to make the kind of jottings that have served him well in the past, including after his son Eddie died from meningitis at the age of 18 in 1999.

When he asked his father who the boy was, Rosen or his older brother, Brian, his father said neither – that it was a third son, Alan, who had died as an infant, before Rosen was born. Rosen never imposes answers on us: “We can watch what others do, listen to what people say, but in the end we have to make it work for whoever we are and whatever life situation we’re in. As someone with a lifelong chronic illness, his words speak to my soul, and this book didn't disappoint.The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Rosen’s greatest coping method might be his tendency towards rigorous self-understanding; writing the book has been a way for him to process events.

There’s a way sometimes when writing is a bit like gathering up some stuff and getting it into one place… I hadn’t actually put it all together in one place.

Sometimes the novels chosen are new, often they are from the backlist and occasionally re-issued from way back. From Michael Rosen, the highly regarded author of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, comes this wonderful new take on the famous nursery rhyme, brilliantly brought to life by David Melling, the creator of Hugless Douglas.

I can't say I had heard of Michael Rosen prior to picking up this book entirely by chance from my library app, despite being aware of the We're Going On A Bear Hunt story before. What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you’d devoted your life to fighting against?At the same time, as a learning professional - a coach and consultant to leaders - I found this aspect of the book somewhat naive.