Robert Munsch
Robert Munsch is a very popular children's author who has written books such as Love You Forever and The Paper Bag Princess. He was born on June 11, 1945 in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He lived with his mother, father and eight brothers and sisters. He was never a good student but always loved to write poetry. When Robert first began his education, he thought he wanted to become a Jesuit Priest. Soon he learned that becoming a priest was not for him. During his time studying as a priest, Robert received an undergraduate degree in history and Master's degree in anthropology. Soon afterwards, he began working at a daycare until he found his nitch. While working there he learned that working at a daycare was really what he wanted to do. Many of Robert's books came from stories he told the children at the daycare. While working at the daycare Robert decided to go back to school and get a degree in education.
At one point the daycare Robert and his wife worked at lost its funding, so they decided to move to Canada. Robert's wife knew a children's librarian. She heard Robert telling his stories to children at the daycare and encouraged him to get his books published. At first he didn't listen, but after a bit of convincing from her and some others Robert decided to give writing a try. He send work nine publishers and one decided to publish his book Mud Puddle. This book had so much success that eventually Robert quit his job and began writing full time. That is the story of Robert Munsch's writing success.
His story Love You Forever is about a mother who has a little boy. He tends to be wild and make a mess of the house, but she still loves him anyways. Every night before the little boy goes to bed his mother sings him the song
"I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as your living, my baby you'll be."As the boy grows older the mom still sings the song to him. Even after they boy leaves the house, she drives to his house in he middle of the night climbs a ladder to his room and sings to him. Eventually the mom gets to old to sing to her son. So he begins rocking and singing to her. And when the boy finally has his own daughter he rocks and sings to her every night before she goes to sleep.
His story The Paper Bag Princess is about a princess named Elizabeth, who's entire kingdom was burned up by a dragon, and her future husband, the prince, was stolen by the dragon. Elizabeth wanted to follow the dragon and rescue her prince, but all of her clothes had been burned up by the fire. All she could find was a paper bag, so she put on the paper bag and followed the dragon to his cave. There she tricked the dragon into flying around the world two times. After that, the dragon was so tired that he fell asleep and princess Elizabeth was able to rescue her prince. However, when she went in to see him he told her to come back when she looked more decent, so the princess decided not to marry the prince after all because of how selfish he was.
If you haven't read any of Robert Munsch's books you should go to your local book store or library and pick one up. And even if you have read his books before, take the time to read them a second, or a third. or a fourth time, because they are great!
If you would like to know more about Robert Munsch or his books, please visit the following websites:
The Official Robert Munsch Website
Lesson Plan-Circling With Robert Munsch
Question and Answer with Robert Munsch
Educational Paperback Association
Robert Munsch Teacher Resource File
Pictures provided by The Official Robert Munsch Website
Created on November 23, 2002