 Comedy: June 07, 2017 Issue [#8320] |
  Comedy
This week: Happy Birthday Bob Munsch Edited by: eyestar~*  
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 Here I am again as a guest editor for Comedy, which is funny all on its own! 
It is so uplifting when laughter creates more laughter and when kids laugh, it is magical and reminder to us that life can be fun. So today I'd like to share about a favourite comic author for kids---and he is even a star trek fan . Robert Munsch!
 Advice for writers:
"Write for fun, and maybe because you have to!"
"Writing is a bit like swimming. You learn writing by doing it and you learn swimming by doing it."(nor by writing a book about it).. If you want to write, write a lot and you will get better at it. "
On how he writes funny stories:
"I get my stories funny by telling them to kids till they get funny. If they don't get funny, I stop telling them."
~~ quotes by Robert Munsch |
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I was in a class the other day and got to read A Robert Munsch story and we all had a good laugh!
"Mud Puddle" and "Mortimer" are classics! So... I asked the kids what they like about Munsch's stories.
 "I like them because they are funny, like when the pigs drive a car and make a mess of everything."
(Pigs)
"People do silly things like make cookies out of playdough and try to get people to eat them. And a girl slept all day and they brought her bed to school!" (MMM! Cookies
"They are hilarious! Stephanie says she will shave her head but doesn't but all of her classmates and teachers do."
(Stephanie's Ponytail)
" I like the Princess got to get the dragon like a knight." (The Paperbag Princess)
And they could so relate to the kid getting all his snow suit and gear on and then having to go...to the washroom! (Thomas's Snowsuit )
The kids were able to share their favorites and their moods lightened up as they told me all of the anecdotes they know from the stories. It doesn't seem to matter how many times they hear them, laughter is present.
So in honour of Robert Munsch's birthday on June 11, let's party with him! He is storyteller of renoun, whose writing career took off in Canada as he told stories to his own five kids and visited schools to retell in classrooms, changing things up til he had the best. He uses real kid's names in real places from around his travel areas. He has a knack of reaching into what appeals to kids and the kid in all of us. And has been known to show up at schools unnannounced to entertain the kids. He was a popular storyteller at festivals and entertainments as well.
 Munsch was born June 11, 1945, in Pittsburg USA, one of nine children and will be 72 this year. Many including his mother said he has never grown up and known to act strangely. He says he was not good in school, poor at spelling and never fit in but read and wrote lots of poems when he was in school. His difficulties in early school helps him relate with kids.Later he realized he was smart, just different!  He studied 7 years to be a priest, earned a degree and then at age 25, he found out he loved day care work, so he got a Master's Degree in child studies and worked with kids, where, with his exueberant style, he began telling stories and making them up on the fly.
He met his wife while working in Day care and when it closed they moved to Canada and became citizens, working in Guelph University Day Care. His boss made him publish his stories after telling them for 10 years. At age 35, he wrote them down and at age 36, he published the only one of 9 that were accepted. Mud Puddle was born and sold 3000 in the first year!
He soon became a phenomenon and left the Day Care system to write and tell stories as he travelled around the country, staying with families and creating his craft.
In 1986 when Love you Forever came out, it went to number one as 30,000 copies sold in Canada, where he was already famous. It also hit the US best as well and began an Munsch mania there as well! His works to date have been translated in 20 languages.
 His approach to storywriting is that he keeps telling it to kids until it is funny and he gets the laughs. His process has always been from an oral storyteller first, repeating and refining it until it gels. He works to keep the attention of 4-7 year olds. It can take 2 years to get a work ready for publishing in his process. With Mud Puddle it was 12 years! It was one his first kiddie stories.
He writes a zany, silly style that is a bit taboo for kids like saying "underwear" and from a kid's point of view and show that family squabbles happen and it is ok. But he does it is a fun way!
Also, he writes about things that kids care about, like snowsuits, underwear, markers, dolls, snot and hugs! Or maybe having a sibling carried away by Blackflies in his story of our northern springtime bugs! He says his funniest is I Have To Go!
Retired from travel now, he still answers fan mail, at one point getting 10,000 fan letters a year. He has written over 50 books, 30 million copies world wide. He is a Canadian icon and has been a popular author in schools across the country and continues to be. He even has two schools named after him. He has a star on the Canadian Walk of Fame and received the Order of Canada.
 Has his life always been a barrel of laughs? No, like most of us, he has his share of trials. Issues with obsessive-compulsive, bi-polar and addiction he has been recovering from for 25 years. His book Purple, Green and Yellow Two children were stillborn, which spurred the tribute of Love You Forever, not a funny story but heartwarming and brings a tear to everyone's eye. I heard it at a librarian conference and there was not a dry eye in the room, even if they had heard it before. Over 20 million book lovers own it. Though one's experience with parents may colour a response to it. It can be a story for all of us. We are all somebody's baby!
 So if you are feeling down or uninspired or just want to read something a little zany, get down to the library and read a bunch of Munsch. Be a little kid again! Bob does it well! 
 Happy 72nd Birthday Bob! 
Some fun links:
Here is Bob reading his classic : "Mortimer" with sound effects for the drama.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1q7sJUkLck
If you want another taste of Munsch: Listen at your leisure: "I have to Go!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqcKoB0HMw0
http://www.azquotes.com/author/18031-Robert_Munsch
http://www.scholastic.ca/munsch/questions-munsch.php
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a4r_rU6mXA
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