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http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/fea/entertainment/columnists/nchurnin/stories/030204dnlivchurnin.50d04.html

Writing is a healing exercise for children's author

06:14 PM CST on Monday, March 1, 2004
 By NANCY CHURNIN / The Dallas Morning News

No publisher wanted Love You Forever when Robert Munsch first sent it
around. They didn't get it, he says. It wasn't funny like his previous
books.

But he just had to write the story of a mother who rocks her baby all the
way through adulthood, crooning:

I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
My baby you'll be.

Writing it was the only thing that helped him heal after he and his wife had
two stillborn babies.

Mr. Munsch, now 58, reads Love You Forever along with a dozen of his funny
stories on a new CD (Love You Forever - The Best of Robert Munsch from The
Children's Group in Ontario, $15.99).

The lucky publisher that eventually took Love You Forever got more than a
best seller (Firefly Books, $12.95 hardcover; $4.95 paperback, for ages
4-8).

Mr. Munsch is now Canada's best-selling children's author. In the United
States, sales of Love You Forever have passed the previous all-time
children's best seller, Goodnight Moon. And that, says Mr. Munsch, is not
just because his mother orders books by the crate to give to her friends.

It is one of those remarkable books that children love for one reason and
adults like for another. Kids get that it's about a parent who will love
them all through life. Adults understand that the parent is aging, and that
one day the child will be doing the rocking.

Mr. Munsch, Canada's most-requested school guest, says he was a disaster at
school himself.

"I was always very distracted. I was always looking out the window,
daydreaming. The teachers did the best they could with hard material," he
says.

After graduation, he worked as a child-care instructor. "It was long hours
and terrible pay, but you really feel you're doing something," he says of
those years. "You feel you're doing a service that people appreciate."

The native of Pittsburgh, now a Canadian citizen, was born into a family of
nine children. He says he always loved being surrounded by kids and telling
them stories - which is one reason he recorded the new CD in a studio filled
with children.

Mr. Munsch met his wife at child care. She was a fellow worker who also
loved kids. She urged him to write down his stories. He didn't listen. A
librarian advised him to write down his stories. He still didn't listen. The
librarian's husband, who happened to be his boss, told him to write down his
stories. Then he listened.

He sent 10 stories to 10 publishers. The 10th one published Mud Puddle , the
tale of a kid in a nursery school. Many more would follow, including Love
You Forever in 1988.

Mr. Munsch continues to visit with kids at schools and libraries. He also
communicates with them on his Web site, www.robert munsch.com. He says kids
still provide his best ideas and inspiration. That includes his three
adopted children, all of whom have books that he's written just for them.

Love You Forever remains his favorite book for a singular reason. "When I
tell it, it always reminds me of the kids I lost," he says. "It always hits
me."

Mary Ludwick, Librarian         K-5 Elementary
Owen Elementary, The Colony, Texas (near Dallas)
ludwickm@lisd.net  (school address)
ludwick@swbell.net (home address)
"Those who don't read have no advantage over
those who can't."  Mark Twain
Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as
well dance.

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