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Michael Rosen is best-known for his children’s books, but came here a year or two back to talk about Emile Zola.

Tonight he will be talking about his own early years – growing up in a Jewish Communist family in London. He’ll be reading from his memoir So They Call You Pisher!

Michael recalls the first twenty-three years of his life. Born in the North London suburbs, his parents, Harold and Connie, both teachers, first met as teenage Communists in the 1930s Jewish East End. The family home was filled with stories of relatives in London, the United States and France and of those who had disappeared in Europe. Unlike the children around them, Rosen and his brother Brian grew up dreaming of a socialist revolution. Party meetings were held in the front room, summers were for communist camping holidays, till it all changed after a trip to East Germany, when in 1957 his parents decided to leave “the Party.” Michael followed his own journey of radical self-discovery: running away to march against the bomb at Aldermaston, writing and performing in experimental political theatre and getting arrested during the 1968 movement.

He will also be discussing his Workers’ Tales – his research into published socialist fairytales of the 19th and 20th century in Britain Reading and Rebellion, radical writing for children in the first half of the twentieth century. Productive, that Michael Rosen!

This event is for adults really.

Tickets: £5 (£4 concessions) from Five Leaves Bookshop – please buy in advance