He first said it years ago: the stories will be the last to go.
And now, prolific and iconic children’s author Robert Munsch — beloved for his stories about a plucky princess named Elizabeth, about Mortimer’s bedtime protest song, about a little boy whose mother will love him forever — is saying that even though the stories still remain with him, he’s slipping away.
In an interview with the New York Times, Munsch says he has decided on a medically assisted death, also known as MAID, after previously being diagnosed with dementia and Parkinson’s disease. He applied and was approved shortly after his diagnosis, he told the publication.
But as tributes to the author started pouring in, his daughter, Julie Munsch, hopped on social media Tuesday to clarify that her father isn’t dying.
Julie Munsch thanked everyone for their well wishes, but in a post shared on the official Robert Munsch Facebook page she emphasized that her father is still doing well and isn’t going to die “anytime soon.” He made his choice to use MAID five years ago, she wrote, and added that people should beware of clickbait.
“My father is NOT DYING!!!” she added.
“My dad is doing well, but of course with a degenerative disease it can begin to progress quickly at any point.”
While Munsch, 80, says he hasn’t set a date, he told the Times he can’t wait too much longer. Under Canadian law, the person receiving MAID must still have “have decision-making capacity.”
“I have to pick the moment when I can still ask for it,” Munsch explained. “When I start having real trouble talking and communicating. Then I’ll know.”
Since publishing his first story, Mud Puddle, in 1979, the Guelph, Ont., writer has sold more than 80 million copies of his books in North America alone. His stories have been translated into 20 languages, including Anishinaabemowin, Arabic and Swedish.
Among his many well-known books, some of the most popular include The Paper Bag Princess (1980), Mortimer (1983), Love You Forever (1986), Murmel, Murmel, Murmel, (1982), and many more. Munsch has written some 75 books, all of them beloved.
In 2021, Munsch told CBC’s Shelagh Rogers that he had ongoing dementia.
“I can’t drive, I can’t ride a bicycle, I can’t write. So it’s been really whittling away on who I thought I was,” he told CBC at the time. “My stories, strangely enough, are all there. The stories will be the last thing to go, I think.”
In the New York Times profile, he shared that he was later diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and spoke candidly about the toll the disease has taken on him. He hasn’t written anything since 2023, when he penned Bounce!, Munsch told the Times. He’s frail, which has isolated him from the children who inspire his work.
He says he wonders if he’ll be “a turnip” in a year’s time.
“I can feel it going further and further away,” he said in the lengthy profile, describing how he used to think and write.
Munsch’s longtime publishers — Annick Press, Scholastic Canada, and Firefly Books — shared a statement on Instagram Monday after the New York Time’s profile came out. In it, they offered their “profound gratitude” to Munsch for opening up and giving this update.
“As proud publishers of Robert Munsch’s beloved books, we are grateful for all the stories he’s shared, including his own,” they said in the post. “We love you forever.”
Robert Munsch on The Paper Bag Princess and the threads that tie his stories together
