Robert Munsch donates his archives to Guelph library, including fan mail and original story drafts

Children’s author Robert Munsch has arranged to donate his papers and archives, including a career’s worth of fan mail to which he diligently responded, to the Guelph Public Library.

The Munsch archive will be made available for research and display at the Ontario city’s new Central Library, planned for a new development at St. George’s Square, the main downtown intersection.

Munsch, 80, has lived in Guelph most of his life since moving there in 1975 to work at the University of Guelph’s Department of Family Studies laboratory preschool. A former Jesuit trainee, he was a daycare worker who became arguably the greatest living children’s author, a bedtime favourite beloved for The Paper Bag Princess, Mortimer, and Love You Forever.

He has been ill for several years with progressive dementia. He had a stroke in 2008. It impaired his storytelling, which he partly recovered through speech therapy. His declining health became a major news event earlier this year when he told The New York Times he had applied and been preliminarily approved for Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID).

Munsch’s family, including his wife Ann, said in statement they are excited to know his archives will be kept with care. “The Library has been a large part of our family’s lives,” they said. “When our children were young, Robert would take the kids every week to pick out new books. Robert Munsch is happy to continue to inspire kids and adults alike through the archives.”

The archives are likely to be in place by 2027, the library said in a statement, calling it an “extraordinary gift.” The archives contain original drafts of his stories, notes from publishers, photographs and artifacts from his 40-year career, in which he published 75 books.

Importantly, the archive contains correspondence from children and other fans who were a central part of his work, even sometimes collaborators in a way. More than most authors, he was available to his readers, both through his tireless reading tours, but also by almost always responding personally to letters he received, often signed by an entire grade school class.

Munsch spent much of his working life in libraries, reading his books to schoolchildren seated around him on the floor. He crossed Canada countless times, often staying with hospitable fans, and taking inspiration from the children he would meet, sometimes working them into stories. Gah-Ning Tang, for example, inspired Where Is Gah-Ning?, about her elaborate plan to escape her hometown of Hearst, Ont., for the bright lights of Kapuskasing, and Andrew Livingston of Latchford, Ont., inspired I’m So Embarrassed!, about his embarrassing mother.

“Robert Munsch captures the hearts of young readers and embodies the essence and importance of storytelling in the early years of learning and literacy,” says Eleni Hughes, Supervisor of Archives and Records Management at the Guelph Public Library. “The Library is honoured to house and provide access to Munsch’s archives to foster a deeper understanding of the stories that shaped many of our childhoods and the man who created and brought them to life.”

Munsch began speaking publicly about his dementia diagnosis in 2021. He had also previously spoken publicly about his alcoholism and drug addictions driven by manic depression and obsessive compulsive disorder, for which he was helped to recovery by Narcotics Anonymous.

In his recent New York Times interview, he said he was moved to the decision to die by MAID by watching a brother die of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and thinking he was being kept alive through interventions when doctors should instead just “let him die.”

“I have to pick the moment when I can still ask for it,” Munsch told the Times.

His daughter Julie Munsch posted on Facebook in response to the swell of attention: “My father IS NOT DYING!!! Thanks to everyone and their well wishes, however, my father’s choice to use MAID was in fact made 5 years ago… My dad is doing well but of course with a degenerative disease it can begin to progress quickly at any point.”

“The Munsch family’s extraordinary gift advances Guelph Public Library’s vision to empower and inspire literacy and lifelong learning for generations to come,“ said Guelph Public Library CEO Dan Atkins. “It’s an exciting time as we prepare to move to the new Central Library and expand our archives. The Munsch family’s generosity stands alongside thousands of Library supporters who have advocated for the work we do.”

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