Purple, Green and Yellow (1992) is about his struggles with depression. Some of Munsch’s stories, such as Andrew’s Loose Tooth (1998), Pyjama Day! (2014) and Finding Christmas (2012) were inspired by his own family. The first story he ever made up, has about five different versions in publication. He has even made changes to stories after they have been published. He then tweaks and reworks the stories over the course of many years before publishing them. For example, he made up Moira’s Birthday (1987), Makeup Mess (2001) and Smelly Socks (2004) on the same day in 1983. He often bases a story on a child’s own experiences and names the main character after him or her. Very much an oral storyteller, Munsch makes up most of his stories in front of children. By the early 1980s, Munsch had quit his job as a daycare worker to focus on his Mud Puddle sold 3,000 copies in its first year. It was rejected by nine but was published by Annick Press (whichīecame his long-time publisher) in 1979. He submitted his first written story, Mud Puddle, to ten publishers. Impressed with his stories and storytelling abilities, his colleagues encouraged him to write and publish them. In 1975, Munsch and his wife, also a daycare worker, moved to Canada to join the Family Studies Department at the University of Guelph. Munsch started telling stories to his preschoolers in 1972. Out I wanted to do was: work in daycare.” Career Highlights As he once explained, “when I left the Jesuits, I decided to work in daycare for a year till I figured out what I wanted to do and what I figured He worked part-time at nursery schools and daycare centres, and after leaving the Jesuits he completed a master’s degree in Child Studies at Tufts University. During that time, he also earned a BA in History at Fordham University and an MA in Anthropology at Boston University. Munsch spent seven years in seminary school preparing to become a Jesuit priest. Nobody thought that was very important, including me.” Education and Early Career Funny poems, silly poems, all sorts of poems. However, all through elementary school, write poetry. “She may be right,īut I figure that I act like a very mature six-year-old.” He has also admitted that, “I never learned how to spell, graduated from eighth grade counting on my fingers to do simple addition, and in general was not a resounding academic success. “My mother says I never grew up and still act like I was six years old,” he once said. By his own admission, he was a terrible student and a perpetual child. Robert Munsch grew up the fourth of nine children in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Robert Munsch at Family Literacy Day in 2011.

I Have to Go! by Robert Munsch