Storyteller

Last night we drove to the city to see Robert Munsch!

Although I purchased the tickets months ago, it was still a rushed trip as Brie had school and John was working, although they both finished their days a little earlier than normal.

Up until a week and a half ago, I was super excited to see the master storywriter and storyteller.

Afterall, we own about a dozen of his children's books.  And Brie typically takes out 2 of his books from the library every day at school.  So much so that the librarian has joked about it with me!  We just love his stories.  The repetition and humor in every story is pure genius.

When we told the girls that we were going, Brie applauded for about 10 minutes straight.  She just loves his stories!  In fact, recently she created her own chapter book and announced that she is going to be an author AND artist for her own books someday.  (It wouldn't surprise me at all.  This girl has some TALENT!)

So we have been looking forward to this for quite a while already.

Until we heard from a "friend" that Robert Munsch has been in the news recently.  And not for something good either.  So I had to google it to find out for sure.

*gulp*

Yep, he is a drug addict.

But he has been clean for 4 months.

4!

F.  O.  U.  R.  months.

Pretty much about the time that I bought the tickets.  But we made the decision that this wouldn't negatively affect the children.  They have no clue what drugs even are.  Even knowing this man's battles with addictions doesn't take away from the fact that he is very talented.

So we went with a mostly positive attitude.

Although I do have to be honest and say that both John and I questioned if he was sober or not last night as we watched him with a critical eye.  (Darn RCMP makes you very sceptical!)

However the show was very entertaining.  He didn't chat first, instead he just jumped right into the first story.  The audience loved joining in on the repetitive parts of the stories, as well as volunteering to be the characters in each story.

Ella LOVED joining in on the repetitive parts of the stories.  Loudly.  She is quite the dramatic child so she also sat very still for the entire hour of the show.  When it came time for "Love You Forever" she snuggled close and demanded that we each take a turn rocking her back and forth.  The song for that story is still stuck in my head this morning.  But that is alright since this is one of my favorite books.      

Neither of our girls even considered putting up their hands to volunteer for a story.  That is until Robert Munsch (do I need to add his last name every time I talk about him?) asked if any parents had loud children.  Then Ella's eyes lit up as she threw her arm into the air.

I love that girl, despite (or maybe it is because of...) her loudness!  At least she knows that she is noisy.

Brie had a great time too.  She is more reserved when showing her excitement but she was giggling along with everyone else.  I even saw her yelling out the repetition a few times!  (Way to go girl!)

It was a fun time for everyone.  John's favorite was when he did "The Paper Bag Princess" and a dad was volunteered to be the dragon from the story.  Poor guy was not very animated but it made for some really funny entertainment as he had to "fly around the world".

We enjoyed many stories that we knew (Up Up Down, Mortimer, Moira's Birthday to name a few more) and some that we hadn't heard before.  I was positive that Brie had taken out every single one of his books at least twice, so it was a little surprising to find out there was some that we did not recognize.

I'm so glad that we all enjoyed it and had fun.