[4] His ancestors were Jews from an area that is now Poland, Romania, and Russia,[3] and his family had connections to The Workers Circle and the Jewish Labour Bund.

[5] His middle name was given to him in honour of Wayne C. Booth, a literary critic who was billeted with his father at Shrivenham American University.

[7] Rosen's mother, Connie (née Isakofsky; 1920–1976), worked as a secretary at the Daily Worker and later as a primary school teacher and training college lecturer.

Among the work that he did while there in the 1970s was presenting a series on BBC Schools television called Walrus (write and learn, read, understand, speak).

He was also scriptwriter on the children's reading series Sam on Boffs' Island, but Rosen found working for the corporation frustrating: "Their view of 'educational' was narrow.

In common with the China expert and journalist Isabel Hilton, among several others at this time, Rosen had failed the vetting procedures that were then in operation.

[12] Rosen played a key role in opening up children's access to poetry, both through his own writing and with important anthologies such as Culture Shock.

[15] The publisher, Walker Books, celebrated the work's 25th anniversary in 2014 by breaking a Guinness World Record for the Largest Reading Lesson.

It deals in part with bereavement and followed the publication of Carrying the Elephant: A Memoir of Love and Loss, which was published in November 2002 after the death of his son Eddie (aged 18), who features as a child in much of his earlier poetry.

[21] Rosen's This Is Not My Nose: A Memoir of Illness and Recovery (2004) is an account of his ten years with undiagnosed hypothyroidism; a course of drugs in 1981 alleviated the condition.

[27] Rosen was the subject of the BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs programme on 6 August 2006; his chosen favourite record, book and luxury item were "Black, Brown and White" by Big Bill Broonzy, the Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg, and his late son's didgeridoo respectively.

Rosen is a long-standing critic of the standardised model of National Curriculum assessment (SATs) and believes English education should focus more on reading.

[32] He has accused English SATs of "distorting and wrecking poetry",[33] and described the grammar taught in primary education as "a package of outdated, rigid, misleading, prescriptive, disputed terms".

[39][40] In November 2019, along with other Jewish public figures, Rosen signed an open letter supporting Corbyn, describing him as "a beacon of hope in the struggle against emergent far-right nationalism, xenophobia and racism in much of the democratic world" and endorsing him in the 2019 UK general election.

[41] In December 2019, along with 42 other leading cultural figures, he signed an open letter endorsing the Labour Party under Corbyn's leadership in the 2019 general election.

The letter stated that "Labour's election manifesto under Corbyn's leadership offers a transformative plan that prioritises the needs of people and the planet over private profit and the vested interests of a few".

[42][43] In May 2021, Pete Newbon posted a photoshopped image of Jeremy Corbyn reading We're Going on a Bear Hunt, replacing the text on the book's page with the antisemitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

[45][46] In August 2010, Rosen contributed to an e-book collection of political poems entitled Emergency Verse – Poetry in Defence of the Welfare State, edited by Alan Morrison.

[51][52][53] Rosen signed off from the Laureateship with an article in The Guardian,[54] in which he said, "Sometimes when I sit with children when they have the space to talk and write about things, I have the feeling that I am privileged to be the kind of person who is asked to be part of it".

[55] In January 2008, Rosen was presented with an honorary doctorate by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust and the University of East London.

"[65] In 2022, Rosen was awarded an honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Nursing by an exceptional and unanimous vote of the RCN Council during the organisation's annual congress; with RCN President Dr Denise Chaffer citing Rosen's lived experience, patient advocacy, and ongoing COVID-19 public awareness work as contributory factors.

[67] The judges – Ruth Borthwick (chair), Raymond Antrobus, and Amber Massie-Blomfield – praised Rosen's "ability to address the most serious matters of life in a spirit of joy, humour and hope.

[72] His second son Eddie (1980–1999) died at the age of 18 from meningococcal septicaemia, and his death was the inspiration for Rosen's 2004 work Sad Book.