If you know me at all, you know I LOVE to read, which is why I am very excited to introduce you to my next guest blogger. Renee reviews books with her kids (what an awesome idea!) on her blog Mother Daughter Book Reviews. She's Canadian, of course, and here to introduce us to her favorite Canadian children's author.
I am so thrilled be have
been asked by Meghan here at Crazy Casa K to contribute a guest post and her
fabulous website. To introduce
myself, my name is Renee and I blog over at Mother Daughter Book Reviews with my two
kids, Danielle (9 years old) and my son Dominic (almost 6 years old). We read all kinds of children’s books
and then share with our readers what we think of them. We also host a number of giveaways
giving our followers chances to win some great books. This has been so much fun for us!
I was asked by Meghan to introduce her
readers to some of my favorite Canadian authors and books. Without hesitation, I knew exactly
which Canadian author I wanted to highlight: Robert Munsch. Ok, technically he was born in the
United States, but we Canadians like to claim him as our own because he wrote
all of his fabulous books after he moved to Canada. ;-)
Robert Munsch has written over 50
children’s books, often in tandem with the fabulous illustrator Michael
Martchenko. What makes Robert
Munsch’s books so delightful is that they were crafted through
story-telling. Each book was conceived
after Munsch repeatedly shared the stories with audiences of children refining
them with each telling. Many of
the books are based on either Munsch’s own children or children that he has
met. The background of the stories
is often shared in the published books as well.
Robert Munsch GETS children. The stories in the books are mostly so
far-fetched that they play to children’s imagination and keep them howling in
laughter throughout. There is
plenty of dialogue in the stories allowing parents to use a variety of voices
when reading the book. There are
many expressions and sound effects used as well. For example, in Mmm,
Cookies! when the Mom takes a bite of a play clay cookie, it goes like
this:
So she picked up that cookie and took a big bite.
These books are FUN to read!
I would like to share with you some of our
favorites. There is a category on
Amazon that consists of “Classic Munsch”.
These books are some of Munsch’s earlier works and ones that are the most
popular and well-known. Here are our Top Three Classic Munsch Books:
Title:
Love you Forever
Year: 1986
Summary: Love You Forever was Number 1 on Our Favorite Children’s Books For Preschoolers 3 to 5 years old. While most of Robert Munsch’s stories
are straight-up hilarious, this one also includes the tenderness the mother demonstrates
toward her child. A mother rocks her new born baby boy to sleep singing a
tender lullaby. As each page
turns, the little boy grows and grows until he is a man. All the while the mother continues to
sing her beautiful song to him. I
have always made up a song to go with the lyrics and I literally get choked up
singing it every time. With this book, you simply can’t go wrong – it is
an all-time favorite.
Title: Jonathan Cleaned Up -- Then He Heard a Sound
or Blackberry Subway Jam
Year: 1981
Summary: Jonathan gets the surprise of his life when
he discovers that a new subway station has opened up in his living room.
Jonathan finds himself cleaning up after the commuters several times a day
until he finally devises a plan to re-route the subway elsewhere. If I had to choose a book based on the
sheer number of times my kids wanted to check it out of the library, it would
have to be this book. This story
is one of the more far-fetched ones and my kids just loved it. You’ll just have to read it to see
where the Blackberry Jam comes in!
Title: The Dark
Year: 1997
Summary: Jule Ann sets loose The Dark which pops out
of the bottom of the cookie jar.
The Dark is a troublesome pest which swallows up all the shadows in Jule
Ann’s house and moves on to swallow up all of the shadows in Jule Ann’s
town. It’s up to Jule Ann to
outsmart The Dark and return him to the cookie jar from which he emerged. I find The Dark to be one of Munsch’s
most imaginative books. We also
had the pleasure of seeing a collection of plays based on Robert Munsch’s works
and this was one of the stories included in the production. This book is a riot!
To choose
our Top Three books from the non-Classic Munsch collection, we need to go no
further than our home’s bookcase.
We have some Robert Munsch books that we felt were so fabulous that we
ought to own them! Here they are:
Title: We Share Everything
Year: 2000
Summary: Amanda and Jeremiah are new to kindergarten
and they have so much to learn about sharing. They quickly learn that the way they deal with conflict with
their siblings at home isn’t going to work here in kindergarten. But, much to their teacher’s dismay,
they quickly learn to share EVERYTHING!
This is a Munsch story that is actually not far-fetched. In fact, it’s the exact opposite – ok,
except perhaps slightly exaggerated. This is a great book for children starting
out in kindergarten, but hopefully it won’t give them any bad ideas. ;-)
Title: Mmm, Cookies!
Year: 2000
Summary: What happens when mischievous Christopher
discovers a big pile of play clay in his basement? His mother and father get fooled by his big, beautiful
cookie, but his teacher finds a way to outsmart him and gives him a piece of
his own ‘cookie’. This book is by
far one of my favorite books to read aloud to the kids because of all of the
sound effects in the text. There
are sounds for making cookies:
‘WHAP, WHAP, WHAP, WHAP, WHAP’; ‘SWISH, SWISH, SWISH, SWISH, SWISH’;
‘CHIK, CHIK, CHIK, CHIK, CHIK’, etc; and sounds for gagging on the cookie (as
described above). We just love
this book because it is a great read-aloud book.
Title: The Sandcastle Contest
Year: 2005
Summary: While on beach vacation with his family,
Matthew enters a sandcastle-building contest with the eye-popping prize of a
bathtub full of ice cream. But
much to Matthew’s dismay, the judges of the contest only see a REAL house on
the beach and demand that Matthew’s house be removed. But, leave it to Matthew to convince them that his sand
house is an official entry into the contest. Will Michael be the winner of the contest? I can’t pinpoint what my kids love
about this story. Perhaps it’s
simply seeing a kid outsmart some adults or seeing a bathtub full of ice cream,
but something plays to their imagination in this story. We’ve read this book dozens of times
and it’s one of their favorites.
Thanks so
much for letting me share some of our favorite Robert Munsch Books. If you haven’t read any, head out to
your local library to see if they have any there. To purchase any of these books on-line, please click on the
images of the book covers. If
you’ve read some Robert Munsch books, I’d love to hear back from you about your
favorites. Please leave us a
comment here at this post telling us which Robert Munsch books your family
loves or hop on over to Mother Daughter Book Reviews and let us know there!
My favorite books growing up - unquestionably the "Anne of Green Gables" series. Set, yep, in Canada, the story of the over-the-top, courageous, talkative, word-loving orphan stole my heart. And there were eight, yes 8! books of her life for me to fall in love with. As a reader who inhales books, this was perfect.
Then, when they made the mini-series, they cast an actress named "Megan" to play Anne (Megan Follows and Richard Farnsworth star). I died of happiness. I was nine years old and so very much wanted to be Anne. My obsession with Anne of Green Gables was never to be topped. I lived her life, breathed her breath - ok, maybe not, but it seems to me that's how Anne would describe it :)
Robert Munsch has written over 50
children’s books, often in tandem with the fabulous illustrator Michael
Martchenko. What makes Robert
Munsch’s books so delightful is that they were crafted through
story-telling. Each book was conceived
after Munsch repeatedly shared the stories with audiences of children refining
them with each telling. Many of
the books are based on either Munsch’s own children or children that he has
met. The background of the stories
is often shared in the published books as well.
http://www.crazycasak.com/2013/08/this-is-family.html
