Dee Savoy

Recently, we had an addition to our family. My younger sister and her husband adopted a baby girl, Christiane. So, of course we have to have the baby shower and of course, the author and kindergarten teacher in me demands that the new baby must have a book. My choice–Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. I don’t know an adult who can get through this book with a dry eye. In fact, when I was in Barnes and Noble looking for it, another woman, obviously a mother by the child glued to her hip, said, “Oh my children love that book. They say, read us the book that makes you cry.” That’s what I did. I read the story to my mother and sister in the store and the three of us ended up weeping like lunatics in the aisle. Is there anything as cathartic as a public, communal tearfest? I don’t think so.

Anyhoo, I was quite proud of myself presenting my new niece and her parents with a worthy tome–until I read this article in PW. Apparently there are some folks who find the book creepy and detestable. I never would have guessed, despite the mother in the story baring a striking resemblance to Shirley MacLaine’s character in Terms of Endearment (emotionally anyway). There are some who suggest that Munsch wrote the book as satire, but that strikes me as the protest of one guilty of mawkishness and lavish sentiment, and well, you’ve got to tell them something.

Oh, well. I’ll go on loving it and you can judge for your own self, but next time I feel the need to indulge, I’ll stay out of Barnes and Noble.