Helen loves springtime — except for the gazillions of blackflies and mosquitoes. But she has a plan. . .
One day Helen wakes up and it's SPRING! The snow has melted and the sun is shining. But Helen knows that the blackflies will be coming out soon. So she does what any smart kid would do: she sends her little sister outdoors to check! When the blackflies and mosquitoes carry her away, Helen tells her dad, who rushes outside and is carried away himself. Now Helen needs to rescue BOTH of them, along with a wolf and a very clever bear. . .
Robert Munsch is the author of dozens of bestselling books, including Smelly Socks, Braids! and So Much Snow! He wrote this story for a girl in Fort McMurray, Alberta, where there are gazillions of blackflies in the spring. He lives in Guelph, Ontario. Jay Odjick is an artist and writer from the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg Algonquin community, just outside of Maniwaki, Quebec. He has created comic books and produced the animated TV series Kagagi: The Raven,which airs in Canada, the US and Australia. He previously illustrated Robert Munsch's story The Ocean Goes On Forever, which appears in the anthology Munsch Mania.
Robert Munsch is Canada's bestselling author. Long before he started writing books, he was a storyteller. The first time he told his stories to a group of children was in 1972, when he was a student teacher at their nursery school. The children liked his stories, so he started telling them more often. He would often take the same story and tell it again and again, changing it a little bit each time, until it got to be really good. Kids liked how loud and animated he was while he told them stories, so he kept doing that, too. This would become his signature storytelling style.
Eventually, once his stories got really, really good, he wrote them down and sent them to a publisher. The publisher said “Yes!” to the story that became the book Mud Puddle. Today, more than 50 Robert Munsch books have been published. Some, like Love You Forever, became runaway international bestsellers. Some, like The Paper Bag Princess and Zoom!, challenge conventions and stereotypes. But nearly ALL of them are based on real kids that Robert Munsch has met, often on his tours and travels. Sometimes, as in Finding Christmas and Pyjama Day!, he even uses his own family. Each book is dedicated to the kid or kids it is based on.
While Robert Munsch has countless fans across North America (he receives about 10,000 letters a year!) his books are also popular around the world. They have been translated into over 20 languages, from Arabic to Swedish, including several First Nations languages. Robert Munsch has received many awards for his work as an author and storyteller. He has a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame, the Order of Canada, and a school named in his honour!
Robert Munsch was even once a kid himself. He grew up in a large family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Now that he’s grown up and has (grown-up) kids of his own, he lives with his wife in Guelph, Ontario, where you can often find him on long walks with his dog.
Jay Odjick is an artist and writer from the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg Algonquin community. He has created comic books, produced the animated series Kagagi: The Raven, and illustrated the picture book Bear for Breakfast, also written by Robert Munsch.
