Robert Munsch has a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame! He was among eight recipients of the honour in 2009. Congratulations Robert!

Telling stories is what Robert Munsch does — and loves best. From the first time he stood in front of a group of children as a student teacher at a nursery school in 1972, his animated presentation grabbed hold of the imaginations of his listeners and he’s been telling stories ever since.

Before he puts a story to paper, Munsch can spend years telling, revising and fine-tuning the tale in front of his rapt audiences. "I figured out once that the stories the kids kept requesting came to two percent of my total output," he says. But once he discovered how to capture the spontaneity of his narratives in written form, he was on his way to being a successful and sought-after author.

Robert Munsch likes to use kids he meets on his storytelling adventures in his books. Ribbon Rescue was inspired by Jillian, a Mohawk girl from the Kahnawake reserve outside of Montreal, who went to hear a storytelling wearing a traditional ribbon dress. We Share Everything! is about Amanda and Jeremiah, whom he met in Pontiac, Michigan. Lighthouse was inspired by a picture given to him by a little girl in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. His three children have also appeared in various stories.

Munsch has published dozens of books, which are sold around the world in many different languages. His first efforts, The Mud Puddle and The Dark, were published in 1979, and the runaway bestseller Love You Forever was first published in 1986. All of his characters are believably energetic, stubborn and endearing children, while his story lines tend to challenge conventions and stereotypes.

Munsch describes his stories as "middle of the road taboo." When he uses words like pee and underwear, "the kids go absolutely bananas." As for the parents, "Eighty percent think it's really neat; the other twenty percent ask, 'How could you?' Munsch and his wife live in Guelph, Ontario. He spends most of his time writing, and likes to devote his spare time to making school visits and telling stories — often without advance notice — at day care centers, schools, and libraries.