Rosoff was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1956, into a Jewish family, the second of four sisters. She attended Harvard University from 1974-1977, then moved to London and studied sculpture at Saint Martin's School of Art. She returned to the United States to finish her degree in 1980, and later moved to New York City for 9 years, where she worked in publishing and advertising.
Career
In 1989, at the age of 32 Rosoff returned to London and has lived there ever since. Between 1989 and 2003, she worked for a variety of advertising agencies as a copywriter. She began to write novels after her youngest sister died of breast cancer. Her young-adult novelHow I Live Now was published in 2004, in the same week she was diagnosed with breast cancer. It won the annual Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, and the annual Michael L. Printz Award from the American Library Association, recognising the year's "best book written for teens, based entirely on its literary merit". In 2005 she published a children's book, Meet Wild Boars, which was illustrated by Sophie Blackall. Just in Case, published in 2006, won the British Carnegie Medal and German Jugendliteraturpreis. What I Was, Rosoff's third novel, was published in August 2007, followed by two more collaborations with Blackall: Wild Boars Cook and Jumpy Jack and Googily. Another novel, The Brides Farewell, was named one of 2009's ten best books for young adults that were published in the American adult market. There Is No Dog, published by Penguin in 2011 is a comic novel supposing that God is a 19-year-old boy. Rosoff told Book Nerd, "The title comes from a joke about a dyslexic atheist walking up and down in front of a church with a sign that reads THERE IS NO DOG." Picture Me Gone was a finalist for the 2013 National Book Award for Young People's Literature. The film of How I Live Now directed by Kevin MacDonald and starring Saoirse Ronan opened in Britain on 4 October 2013 and in America and Canada on 5 November 2013. In 2016, Rosoff won the Astrid Lindgren memorial award and the largest cash prize in children's literature for her entire catalog of work.
Picture books
Meet Wild Boars, illustrated by Sophie Blackall
Jumpy Jack and Googily, illustrated by Sophie Blackall
Wild Boars Cook, illustrated by Sophie Blackall
''It's A Moose!", illustrated by David Ercolini
Middle Grade Books
Good Dog, McTavish, illustrated by Grace Easton
McTavish Goes Wild, illustrated by Grace Easton
McTavish Takes The Biscuit, illustrated by Grace Easton
McTavish On The Move, illustrated by Grace Easton and David Shephard
Novels
How I Live Now
Just in Case
What I Was
The Bride's Farewell
Moose Baby
There Is No Dog
Picture Me Gone
Jonathan Unleashed
The Great Godden
Non-fiction
London Guide: your passport to great travel, by Rosoff & Caren Acker