The boy inside the man

Did he get good marks? NO!

Did he have any friends? NO!

Did he get any dates? NO!

Bobby didn't know that he had bipolar disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder and was on his way to becoming an alcoholic. So what did he do? He decided to become a Jesuit priest!

He studied for seven years. But it didn't work. Bobby was still sad.

So he got a job in a day care and started making up stories to keep the kids quiet. It worked! Bobby’s stories were so wacky and different that kids listened to him and teachers listened to him and parents listened to him. When Bobby was telling stories, he was happy. Not just a little bit happy – he was VERY happy. He wrote the stories down, and people started buying his books, which made Bobby even happier.

Did he sell a hundred books? NO!

Did he sell a thousand books? NO!

Did he sell a million books? NO!

Bobby sold 40 million books, becoming the best-selling Canadian author of all time and blowing Margaret Atwood’s sales right out of the water.

The End

Well, it’s not really the end. Bobby – now known to friends as Bob and to readers as Robert Munsch – is continuing to write and to sell books. With most of his titles – there are more than four dozen – still selling briskly and his newest, Lacey’s Kiss, to be released this fall, sales are heading toward 41 million.

Because Munsch’s books have been around for more than 25 years, he has become a household name to millions of people who read his books to their children, who are now reading them to their children. Even those who may not recognize his name will be familiar with his most famous titles: Mortimer, who yells, “Clang, clang, rattle-bing-bang!” every bedtime; I Have to Go! about a boy with toilet-training challenges; Good Families Don’t, about the ever-fascinating topic of flatulence; or The Paper Bag Princess, a fractured fairy tale in which the princess outwits the dragon, saves herself and dumps the snobby prince.