Story Concert: Robert Munsch

A few weeks ago I heard one of my all-time favourite authors do a story concert. Canadian childrens’ author Robert Munsch. He is the author of fan-tab-ulous tales such as The Paperbag Princess (kick butt princess who saves the prince), The Mud Puddle (what would happen if a mud puddle jumped on you), Angela’s Airplane (what would happen if a five-year-old accidentally flew a jumbo jet), The Playhouse (when decorating a playhouse gets a bit out of hand), and about 30 or 40 more other fun stories.

If you have ever heard Robert Munsch tell a story (I started with LPs, but these days you can hear him online–drag Mortimer (about a boy who won’t go to sleep) onto the listening spot to experience Robert first hand), his story concerts are pretty much exactly like that. He has so much emotion, voice, character, actions, and audience involvement that hour whizzes right by. If you close your eyes, you can still see it.

As an author, how can we make our readings that much fun? Seriously, it was FUN! (And not just because I am  totally still a kid inside.) How do we get out audiences involved? How do we get them predicting the next line so they say it out loud with us? How do we make them laugh and want to dance? How do we bring them down to that quiet place and the next moment bring them so far up they feel as though their chest is going to burst open from all that love and joy that’s pushing out of it? How do we do it?

That’s what I want to know. How.