Dementia Is Stealing the Imagination of Robert Munsch, Children’s Book Writer - The New York Times

Robert Munsch wrote “The Paper Bag Princess,” “Love You Forever” and other classics by performing them over and over for kids. But his stories are slipping away. The children’s author Robert Munsch. Credit... Haruka Sakaguchi for The New York Times Supported by By Katie Engelhart In 1989, an 8-year-old named Gah-Ning Tang drew a picture of herself in a hot-air balloon and mailed it, along with a short letter, to her favorite author, Robert Munsch. Then, two weeks later, she wrote again. And then again and again: usually on the backs of used paper place mats that she scavenged from the Chinese restaurant where her parents worked in the tiny town of Hearst, Ontario. By then, Munsch had published nearly two dozen children’s books, including “The Paper Bag Princess,” “Mortimer” and “Love You Forever” — a book that would outsell even “Goodnight Moon” and “Where the Wild Things Are.” He was famous and adored, particularly in Canada, where he lived and where, in some years, he received tens o

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