Author Robert Munsch reads to children from one of his books at City Hall in Toronto in 2009. This week, the New York Times revealed that Mr. Munsch has dementia and has been approved for medical assistance in dying.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
They are countless, the childhoods that have been enhanced by Robert Munsch’s imagination; that have been delighted by the snowsuit-refusing boy named Thomas; the expectant parents who go to the zoo instead of the hospital and bring a baby alligator home to its big brother; and of course, the paper-bag-sporting, dragon-fighting princess. For generations, the author’s genius has been providing the soundtrack to so many bedtimes, so many snuggles. Over these stories, giggles erupt, ideas are ignited, tears wiped away and their cause forgotten. There has been so much bonding over these very silly stories written by Mr. Munsch, with big assists from so many kids at so many schools, children he has visited and to whom he has read – and listened.
Everyone has a favourite. This week, one of those favourites (although it’s a divisive one – some love it, some find it, dare I say, creepy; I’m in the former camp), the tearjerker Love You Forever, became even more impossible to read without dissolving into waterfalls of tears. The New York Times revealed that Mr. Munsch has dementia and has been approved for medical assistance in dying (MAID) – but he must be of sound enough mind to actively consent to the procedure, when it’s time.
“I have to pick the moment when I can still ask for it,” he said.
Children’s author Robert Munsch has planned a medically assisted death owing to dementia diagnosis
The piece detailed the symbiotic way Mr. Munsch often crafted his stories (past tense because he can no longer craft them like this). He got many ideas from observing children; and he essentially workshopped stories by reading them aloud, altering them based on the students’ responses. For his characters, he used real names of kids in these classes, or who sent him letters.
A few years ago, a kindergarten class at Chaffey-Burke Elementary School in Burnaby, B.C., learned firsthand – from afar, alas – how deeply Mr. Munsch valued these relationships. After the class wrote to the author, he sent them a story called Crash, featuring characters named for several students in the class – and the principal, who gets crushed by bricks and becomes “flat like a pancake.” The kids loved it, of course.
Munsch in 2014. Some of the beloved author’s books include Love You Forever, The Paper Bag Princess and Stephanie’s Ponytail.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
At the time, Mr. Munsch told The Globe and Mail by e-mail that he felt bad that he could no longer accept invitations to visit classrooms; after a stroke and a heart attack, he wasn’t well enough.
“I write back to all the schools that write and choose names from the class and send an unpublished story,” he wrote in bright blue font. “I am glad that the kids in Burnaby enjoyed my story.”
Mr. Munsch, the New York Times story revealed, can no longer write his stories – can’t even read books.
Could this be a time when we, his generations of readers, come to his rescue? To do what we can to calm the dragon in his brain? The one that is making it so hard for him to remember the words that have delighted us, and impossible to create new stories for us?
We could invent a machine that would shake up and revive brain cells. Nobody knew if it would work, but a kid named Oliver barfed and the class guinea pig, Fido, started making weird sounds. And everyone laughed so much that they forgot they were sad about their favourite author getting sick.
Munsch celebrates Family Literacy Day at Willow Park Junior Public School in Scarborough in 2008.Ashley Hutcheson/The Globe and Mail
Or kids around the world heard there would be a gathering of fans to surround and support their favourite author, who couldn’t move around so much any more because he kept falling and was very tired. Fans? They want fans? The kids showed up, lugging box fans, those newfangled neck fans, colourful bamboo folding fans and one kid brought a fancy Dyson tower fan. They turned them on and the whir was an orchestra.
Or maybe schools across the land and beyond would decide to show their gratitude by reading his books out loud, into the universe, where a Munschian wind, created by a beginners’ trombone class in Montreal, might swoop through and bring the sounds of the words that were born in his brain back home, to his house in Guelph, Ont. All the schools in the world, a Munschathon.
The children were sad and so were their teachers and parents, who may have also been children when they heard these stories, years before reading them to their own daughters and sons. They recalled their favourite bits and characters and shared them and laughed and remembered – and they were too busy laughing at the stories to be sad any more. For a while, anyway.
We don’t know when, but like all creatures great and small – parents of boys who hate snowsuits and alligators swaddled in baby blankets – Robert Munsch too will pass. But his words will be loved forever, for always. As long as we, his readers, are living, his stories will be.
