Robert Munsch, Not Celebs
What makes a good children’s book? I wish the ones from my own children’s early days weren’t currently in storage because I’d rifle through them to recall what grabbed their attention. Of course there’s no pat answer; a book can affect someone for any reason.
That said! The “best” children’s books are (usually) not written by celebrities. (Sorry, multi-hyphenates.) The best children’s books are written by people like Robert Munsch. This NYT story about the author of favorites like The Paper Bag Princess and Love You Forever (yes, the one that conjures polarized reactions) is lovely. I had read it and was going to send it to a friend, but she sent it to me first. I did send it to someone I don’t actually know directly, and she said that many others had sent it to her too.
It’s being sent around because Robert Munsch has dementia. A straight profile of an author can be interesting — and for sure Munsch would be an amazing topic regardless. But a profile of an author that also illuminates his thought process and how this condition affects it is poignant and thought-provoking.
Munsch was first an accidental storyteller as a preschool teacher. Eventually, he was persuaded to write down these tales. Here are some good take-aways:
“If he told a good story, the children would stay on their cots and eventually fall asleep; if he told a bad story — a boring story, or a prescriptive one — they would wander.”
“Over time, the stories tended to grow slender; their excess baggage was shed over dozens of retellings…The process usually required 50 tellings and could take as long as 20 years. Munsch liked to say that he was not an author but a storyteller who sometimes wrote things down.” (20 years!)
“The classic Munsch book…does not try to teach a child anything — or to improve her…His characters are not vessels for adult instruction or moral education or behavior modification.”
(Take that, celebs.)
The human mind is so complicated. People who can relate to children are such a gift. I don’t think we can fully grasp how minds like this tick, but it’s important to celebrate them even when their mind starts changing.
The book was Grey Bees, which I loved — despite the mess.
originally published on instagram