4 decades ago, Robert Munsch attended Moira Green's birthday. Her story became a children's classic

Detailed summary

Four decades ago, Robert Munsch flew to the Northwest Territories in search of inspiration. The beloved author found it at Moira Green's sixth birthday party.

On Moira Green’s 10th birthday, she put on a giant paper bag and a homemade crown and headed down to Hay River’s public library, where a surprising number of residents from the remote Northwest Territories town were waiting.

There were 200 pizzas and 200 little cakes. She ran into a dragon, Prince Ronald and other valiant attempts by her Grade 5 classmates to bring the beloved characters from Robert Munsch’s earliest works to life.

Technically, Green could have come dressed as herself: the inspiration behind Moira’s Birthday.

“After we did our little performances and stuff, they got Robert Munsch on the line,” Green said in a recent interview. “I don't know how they did it back in the day, but everyone in the library could hear him. And then, he read the story [to] all of us."

Six months earlier, Toronto-based Annick Press had published Moira’s Birthday. And exactly four years previous, the Guelph, Ont., children’s author had visited the Northwest Territories for the first time, leaving behind a trail of memories for many in the community of roughly 3,500 people living there at the time, and, as Green recalls, whenever anyone new turned up, her parents insisted they come for supper.

That small-town friendliness was how Munsch, known for billeting with families during his tours, came to stay with Bruce and Marilyn Green and their five children, all of whom would make an appearance in the first of three books he would dream up during the trip.

Green, shown wearing the Paper Bag Princess costume, is seen here at her 10th birthday party in Hay River, N.W.T., in November 1987. She and other kids performed skits based on Munsch's books. (Submitted by Moira Green)

Those connections Munsch forged with kids, living in big cities and tiny hamlets, became the fabric of the nearly 100 books he has written in his career. In an interview with CBC News last year, his “last hurrah,” the author revealed that another 50 books will likely be published after his death.

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